I bought A Little Stranger (1989) by Candia McWilliam at a National Trust secondhand bookshop, not knowing anything about it but intrigued by the enthusiastic quotes on the back – and, I’ll admit, its brevity. At only 135 pages, I knew it could fit into one of my May reading projects. The quote that won me over was from an unnamed reviewer in the Guardian: “Compelling and unsettling… McWilliam uses the conventions of middlebrow fiction to slice away its usual reassurance… very funny too, a comedy of good manners in which each well-meaning utterance becomes a source of confusion and dismay.”
I think that’s a pretty good indicator of the novella’s tone. Daisy is the narrator – often unrealiable, to herself as much as anyone else. She lives with her husband Solomon and their son John in a large house with servants, and they need a new nanny for John: here enters Margaret Pride. From the outset, Daisy is looking for relationship and information, and Margaret is equally reticent on either front. She is engaged to a man she says nothing about, gives little detail about her previous employment, and quietly disregards the overtures of interest that Daisy offers.
She did not speak of her parents in the round. She appeared to have no childhood memories. When she released details, they were flat and lifeless as details from an instruction leaflet. It was as though she described self-assembly furniture.
As Daisy shows her round the house, it is clear that this won’t be the relationship she is hoping for.
She looked around like someone wondering whether or not to buy, and again said nothing. Sensible, really, not to be beguiled by things. After all, the child was the point. In ‘her’ sitting-room and the nursery bathroom she also passed no remark. She must perhaps be shy. Her last job has been in much the same sort of place, but perhaps I intimidated her. I am told I can. I am taller than most and have more hair. I also look at other people very hard.
Daisy and Margaret are both fascinating characters. Margaret is interesting because she is an enigma – and, as we can only see her through Daisy’s eyes, we have to glean what we can through this refraction. Daisy, on the other hand, is fascinating because she is such a bad interpreter of almost everything, including herself. She is constantly trying to understand other people, but superimposes her own weak, optimistic readings before she can come to any more justifiable conclusions. The reader is suspicious of Margaret long before Daisy is, though we can’t work out exactly why.
That’s what is so unsettling about the book. There is a sense that something will burst, or some truth will come to light. Too much is kept hidden for us to trust Daisy’s interpretation of events.
And yet Daisy is a sharp, funny character on other grounds. I really enjoyed some of the incidental irony at contemproary culture. She describes an author who ‘could not write but could not help selling’, and also:
I spent the evening, after a supper of sweetbreads and rye bread, reading. I could not see that there was much on television but serials about the effects of illness or of wealth. I could not differentiate between these programmes, though the outfits worn by the victims sometimes gave a hint, and the terminally ill, or those who impersonated them, appeared to wear even more make-up than the terminally rich.
As for the title, it does describe Margaret – but it is also, of course, a reference to pregnancy. ‘Once you are pregnant, you have an unbreakable appointment to meet a stranger.’ And not long into Margaret’s tenure, Daisy discovers she is pregnant – which becomes another thread in this unsettling story.
For much of this novella, I was filled with admiration. Particularly towards the beginning, I found the balance of intrigue, eeriness, and humour worked really well. Sometimes the floweriness of the language (which suited Daisy’s character) did go rather too far, to the point that I didn’t quite know what was going on in the scene – but it was an enjoyably engineered tone and the two characters were expertly handled.
But… I shan’t spoil it, but the end of the book is such a tonal shift – and, frankly, misogynistic – that it really coloured when beforehand. There are twists that felt unearned and inartistic. It was also increasingly confusing, and not in a way that I thought was deliberate. I found it such a pity, and it went from being a book I was delighted to have discovered to one that will probably be heading to a charity shop. It’s all the more frustrating, because McWilliam is clearly such a good writer and the premise was excellent.
Sorry to end on a sour note, but you can join in my frustration!