Retro Review: The Paying Guests
/When I started this blog, I had been posting reviews on Goodreads for about 6 months. In the interest of having all of my book writing in one place, I will post one of these old reviews every Friday. They weren't written with a blog in mind, so please forgive the lack of summary and off-the-cuff tone.
4 stars. I have so much praise for this book, I hardly know where to begin.
First of all, Waters has a tremendous ability to build tension and maintain suspense without being predictable. It’s a story we’ve all heard: an affair, a murder, a cover-up, a scandal, heartbreak, social constraints … and yet somehow, it reads like a smooth thriller. A thriller of the heart, or something. I realize that makes it sound like a soap opera - and maybe it’s a little pulpy, but emotionally it’s incredibly sophisticated.
I am also particularly impressed by Waters’ ability to flip the lesbian historical novel upside down. I am certainly not an expert in LGBT literature, nor can I comment from a homosexual perspective, but it was refreshing to read about a protagonist who had already “discovered” her orientation, had already experienced her first lesbian relationship, had already come to terms with her identity. We see the confusion, fear and crisis normally found in a historical (or modern) novel like this instead in her love interest, Lillian.
This is a simple story, really. It’s contained. It goes deep instead of wide, which is why I have trouble understanding the comparison to Dickens. To Rebecca, certainly, although Waters I think is a little more straightforward (no hidden undertones here!). She drives things forward without sacrificing delicious details; in fact, the details are what drew me in - the glances, the moments of incredible anxiety, the nature of a smile - Waters examines huge themes by focusing on the cracks in the wall rather than the foundational issues. And it really works.
I have almost nothing to say about the language, which is a great thing. Waters is superb. She was born to write novels like this.
This is the type of book I might have enjoyed as a teenager, the type of book that maybe/possibly/probably should be taught to young people to expand their idea of sexuality through a historical lens. But it’s also quite simply about people - good people, decent people, admirable people - who do something wrong.