Sudden Guest

by Christopher La Farge

Light wear to boards, content clean and sharp, solidly bound, good DJ with some wear

Genres: Fiction

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Christopher Grant La Farge was an American novelist and poet known for writing verse novels that chronicled life in Rhode Island. He was the father of Tom La Farge.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I did not hesitate in the least in giving this 5 stars. How could I after having read in one sitting. A rather long 6 hour sitting. Could not and did not want to put it down. Could be because I have always lived alone, like the main character. Living alone does not mean you were always the only person living in your residence. This was a story without ending, can hardly wait to read it again,, but would like to do it during a hurricane or at least a good thunderstorm and of course ALONE..

[MD · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surprisingly timely novel (written shortly after WWII) that addresses isolationism and prejudice through the story of two different hurricanes experienced by the same person in the same location. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend it.

[Tammy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every race, class, and gender prejudice is exposed in this book that is very much a product of it's time, being published in 1946. It's a poetic and interesting character study of a lonely woman on the threshold of senior citizenship. She is isolated in part from her own doing, and part due to societal norms. Reasons for her repressed and bitter nature are heavily hinted at, and I think she finally understood herself at the end, albeit possibly too late.

[Thom Dunn]

Novel of Rhode Island denizens during the great hurricane of 1938--from Mom's collection. BOTM Club notice tipped in.

[June G · Rating 4 out of 5]

( 250 pages )

A la Iris Murdoch, before there was Iris Murdoch.

[Mick Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read this book a number of times and have enjoyed it thoroughly! Overwhelmingly, my strongest emotion is an intense dislike for Miss Lecton. What a nasty old bitch! I get the strong impression that she's a hungry, unfulfilled lesbian, but doesn't want emotional involvement with anyone.
This is a great novel!

[Tom Leland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully, brilliantly written. I read it more quickly than any book in years. Someone compared the writing to that of Iris Murdoch, which I can see -- but the writer that occasionally occurred to me was Ishiguro.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this many years ago, one of several in a box lot bought at an estate sale. Have read it twice and am now on a third reading. Just one of those books that I keep going back to and getting something different each time, perhaps because I've read it at different ages in my life. I'm now just a bit older than the main character: a patrician New Yorker who doesn't "really look her age. Perhaps fifty, or a little more. Fifty-five."

Borrowing from the Book-of-the-Month Club News review tipped in:
"The story deals with only two days in the life of Carrell Leckton, an elderly, wealthy spinster living in her ancestral summer home on the Rhode Island coast. But by the time the reader has finished absorbing the events of these two days he has learned to know utterly the soul (it is not a large one) of Miss Leckton; he has learned a good deal about a half dozen other characters, widely assorted; and, most important, he has probably learned a little about himself."

This is a character study of minute detail. One follows the thoughts of Miss Leckton as she prepares herself and her house, for the second time in six years, to withstand a storm of hurricane force. As she desperately tries to maintain control of her world and of everyone around her, she is thrust back into memories of an earlier, devastating storm during which that essential control was destroyed along with the precious ancient elms that stood as symbols of her lineage.

Miss Leckton is not likable. She is proud and aloof, and holds her standards inviolable. When forced against her will to open her home and provide hospitality to strangers in a desperate time, she is ungracious and barely civil. But, since we are privy to her inmost thoughts, we can sense her fear and dread of possible error. Some instinct in her whispers that the price she has paid for her standards may have been too high - but she will not listen. In a way, my heart aches for her.

Note: the storms, real ones, were in 1938 and 1944

Added note, with spoiler tag: the author implies Miss Leckton struggles with unacknowledged lesbian feelings.

[Rachael Lischak · Rating 1 out of 5]

A book about terrible people doing terrible things. The main character was a terrible person but the two side characters who fall in love with that 15 year old is just disgusting.