The Giant's House

goodreads.com/book/show/136216.The_Giant_s_House

The Giant’s House is told in retrospect from the first person perspective of
librarian Peggy Cort. Thirty-five years after her story begins, Peggy is looking back
on her life. From the outset, Peggy’s narrative voice is original and startling in
places. She is such a charismatic, likeable narrator. Her narrative voice certainly
has a distinctive style and is simultaneously chatty and eloquent, allowing the
reader to be absorbed into her world from the outset. The novel addresses the audience as
The Giant’s House is told in retrospect from the first person perspective of librarian Peggy
Cort. Thirty-five years after her story begins, Peggy is looking back on her life. From the
outset, Peggy’s narrative voice is original and startling in places. She is such a charismatic,
likeable narrator. Her narrative voice certainly has a distinctive style and is simultaneously
chatty and eloquent, allowing the reader to be absorbed into her world from the outset. The
novel addresses the audience as ‘you’ throughout which really makes the reader feel part of
her story. We are consequently able to identify and empathise with Peggy completely.
The Giant’s House does primarily deal with a love story, but it goes far deeper than that. The
story begins in the autumn of 1950, when James Carlson Sweatt, the ‘giant’ of the novel,
walks into the library in which Peggy works, joined by his teachers and classmates. Peggy is
twenty-five years old when this happens, and James only eleven. By this point, James is
already six foot four. The plot of The Giant’s House is original in that it transcends so many
boundaries. In the 1950s, particularly in small-town America, many would not be aware of
James’ medical condition which causes him to continually grow at an alarming rate. His
classmates and other members of society treat him as an outsider. They are aware of his
height towering above them but they do not really notice him as a human being. As the
novel progresses, James becomes somewhat famed for his height and people begin to make
special trips to Brewsterville in order to spot him.

Peggy’s sheer sense of loneliness is apparent from the outset. She has moved to
Brewsterville, an unremarkable town in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, after finishing her course
at library school in Philadephia. It seems that she is striving for something new – a fresh
start away from everything she has ever known. Peggy, a self-confessed ‘spinster’ who has
never before fallen in love, soon cares incredibly deeply for James. She does not just see him
as someone too tall to fit in, but as a beautiful young boy who deserves to be loved and
respected by his peers and elders. She begins a series of good deeds which eventually allow
her to infiltrate James’ life, soon becoming a clear part of it. She begins by finding him
different books on his weekly library trips and helping him to research other ‘giants’. The
love which Peggy feels for James blossoms slowly at first. The prose is compelling, really
making the reader believe in Peggy’s plight.

1/3
The Giant’s House transcends different stages in the lives of James and Peggy – stages both
lived together and apart. The essence of the novel is about being different, being an
outsider, trying so desperately to fit in even though you know your battle will ultimately be
fruitless. The story itself builds to an incredibly sad crescendo and really jolts the reader’s
heart.

Other characters feature in the novel but James features most heavily of all. He is the most
pivotal character of The Giant’s House. The other characters, including Peggy, orbit around
James and his wellbeing. He is their common link, an intrinsic fibre of the story and the bond
which ties everything together. He really begins to come out of his shell as the story unfolds.
The other characters who form different kinds of relationships with Peggy are Astoria Peck,
a colleague at the library in which Peggy works, Mrs Sweatt, and Caroline and Oscar
Strickland. James’ mother, Mrs Sweatt, seems a little troubled from the outset of the novel.
Nobody knows her first name and she is consequently just known as ‘Missus’. She is
described as being rather a heavy drinker. Caroline Strickland is the tomboyish aunt of
James. She is friendly and humorous in the way in which she says things so matter-of-factly
– for example, ‘Well Peggy Cort… You’re not an unpleasant woman’. Oscar Strickland is
Caroline’s husband and James’ kindly uncle. At the start, James’ father does not feature in
the story. He is being brought up by his mother, Aunt Caroline and Uncle Oscar in a white
house painted with flowers.

The entire host of characters in The Giant’s House is incredibly believable. They fit together
like people in a real twentieth century society. All of the characters are intriguing in their
own ways. Despite the fact that they all live in the same small town, they are remarkably
different from one another. This is another reason why they interact so well within the story.
None of their dialogue, speech patterns, turns of phrase or elements which build their
three-dimensional characters overlap in any way. Their interactions are always fresh and
surprising, and nothing mundane is relayed in McCracken’s writing. Her dialogue is
wonderful. She adds an extra depth to her characters by making them speak so realistically.
Her dialogue becomes intrinsically linked with the bare bones of each character until they
are suddenly fully fleshed out individuals walking around the town of Brewsterville as
though they have always been there.

With regard to the writing style of the novel, McCracken is unlike many of the contemporary
novelists publishing today. The first sentence of The Giant’s House – ‘I do not love mankind’ –
immediately places a barrage of questions into the mind of the reader and makes us
empathise with Peggy immediately.

The novel is split into three separate parts and the prose itself is haunting in places. The
novel is set in the unfolding 1950s but McCracken writes in such a way that the setting and
plot are vivid and alive. The reader feels that they are part of the action rather than wholly
removed from it.

2/3
With each reading of The Giant’s House, new details seem to glow from the page. It is one of
those novels that deepens and affects the reader more each time it is read. Something new
is taken away with each consecutive reading of the novel. The Giant’s House is a story which
seems to grow with the reader, and is a novel which deserves to be recognised as one of the
highest peaks of modern literature.

...more

3/3