Review: The Paying Guests

[terresdebrume]

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Plot: The first half of the book exposes how Frances, whose father died leaving her and her mother nothing but debts, is forced to rent part of the family house to Lilian and Leonard Barber, despite the shame associated with those lower class practices (hence the euphemism ‘paying guests’ to avoid calling the Barbers ‘lodgers’). At first Frances, like her mom, is unhappy about the intrusion into their daily lives, but as time passes and she gets to know Lilian and her unhappy marriage, the two women begin falling in love, going so far as to making plans to leave the house and find a place where they can live together.

Unfortunately, around the midway point of the novel, things start going to hell in a handbasket, and the rest of the novel is dedicated to all the ways in which that happens, as well as the way they affect Frances and Lilian’s relationship.

Trigger/warnings: Unsafe abortion, creeping male character, violent death, explicit sexual content.

Review: The first half of the novel is very well handled, with a slow burn romance that tickles all the right spots and doesn’t fail to take the period-appropriate homophobia into account. Not that this is always a necessity (we all like escapist fantasies) but the way the book is presented went for realism and that means homophobia has to be present even if, as in The Paying Guests, it’s kept mostly non-violent.

I also liked the precise, realistic sense I got of post-war London. I’m no historical expert, so obviously I might have let things pass (although from what I’ve read, Sarah Waters seems to be good at the accuracy game) but if nothing else the city Frances (whose POV we follow through the whole book) inhabits felt real to me and that’s always something to like.

And as a last but important note: I really liked that the plot felt like it could really have happened—which, again, isn’t always a requisite, but when I read something that wants to be realistic it’s a big requisite.

I do, however, wish that it had be more satisfying.

The thing is, the plot could have been taken from real life and, as is the way with real life, there was no real closure or conclusion. To be clear: the first half of the novel is fairly explicitly a romance story. The love-story is the main focus, it’s where all the stakes are, and that’s what we want resolution on (presumably, I wasn’t alone in wanting a happy ending).

In its second half, however, The Paying Guests turns into a crime novel, as we follow Frances’ anxiety at how things will develop. This changes the themes and stakes of the novel entirely, all but relegates the romance to the background of the story and, by leaving Lilian and Frances in an uncertain state of mind, deprives the reader from the emotional closure and the end of the romance arc.

Which is a shame, really, because it leaves us—or at least, it left me—hanging and makes for a major let-down compared to the set up of part one. Overall not a bad experience, but I wouldn’t call it extraordinary either, hence the three stars.