A good third of this book could have been edited out without doing it any harm.įrances Wray lives with her mother in a nice area of London. Frances, the protagonist, is given to internal meanderings that repeat themselves over and over again.

I found The Paying Guests to be overwritten and overwrought. I am new to Sarah Waters though I've had her novel, Fingersmith, recommended to me in the past. It took me over a week to read this novel and I did not find it enjoyable. I usually finish a book within three days, even one as lengthy as this one. I struggled through this book, and I DO mean struggled. Since the people working for her won't say anything, I will. Happy to receive your rewrites by Monday at 5.

Perhaps make them more lifelike-characters that readers can despise, root for, or at least care about-and less like words on the page. of legal drivel down to 75.Īlso, can you go for something other than the 1920s English domestic novel? It's duller than deadly nightshade.įinally, please give the two main characters personalities so that readers can tell them apart. Please rework the above-mentioned passages, cut about 30 pages from the melodramatic self-induced abortion scene (it seems all you do is repeat the words 'moan' and 'pale' and 'blood' for several pages), make it harder to see the stupid plot twist coming from 100 pages away, and narrow the last 250 pp. Just got the feedback from the boys upstairs. I'm sure some junior editor making 20 grand a year at some London publishing house wasn't about to fire off an email to the great Sarah Waters saying, 'It was like being parched, and touching water, like being famished, and holding food.' (Sigh. It was like the white of an egg growing pearly in hot water, a milk sauce thickening in the pan.' (Huh? How romantic). There was a quickening, a livening – Frances could think of nothing to compare it with save some culinary process. 'They smiled at each other across the table, and some sort of shift occurred between them. 'She seemed to have lost a layer of skin, to be kissing not simply with her lips but with her nerves, her muscles, her blood.' (EW). The result is a multitude of cringe-worthy passages: The New York Times, FT, and the Guardian are going to laud her no matter what she writes - making her clean up the crap isn't worth the trouble.Īnd judging from The Paying Guests, no editor dared email her to let her know she was repeating herself on every goddamn page, or to suggest she rewrite some of the suckier parts. My point is, Sarah Waters is powerful enough that no one questions her any more. Waters is adored in the literary world, half of her books have been turned into BBC dramas, and she's got more awards up the wazoo than Teen Mom Farrah has glass dongs up the. The problem with this book is that Sarah Waters got famous. When a book this terrible is written by an author that we know is capable of so much more, it feels like a personal affront.Īfter a fantastic debut and decades of decent novels, what the hell went so wrong with The Paying Guests? How could our fair Sarah do this to us? After two years of waiting for Sarah Waters' new novel to come out, reading this actually made me want to cry a little.

Paying guest