A Little Stranger by Candia McWilliam – #ABookADayInMay – Day 12

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…