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A review by kimbofo
The Guest by Emma Cline
4.0
Emma Cline offers up an unlikely grifter in her novel The Guest, which tells the story of a 22-year-old woman charming her way through a summer on Long Island while on the run from a man to whom she owes a lot of money.
Alex is an escort from “the city” (presumably New York) and she’s stolen an unspecified amount of money from a client because she’s behind on her rent.
The client, Dom, keeps sending her menacing text messages and angry voicemails, and Alex, knowing she’s not able to pay anything back, grabs the first lifeline that is thrown her way: she moves into a luxurious summerhouse in the Hamptons with Simon, a wealthy man 30 years her senior, after he invites her to spend August there with him.
But things don’t go according to plan. When Alex embarrasses Simon at a party, she’s escorted to the train station with a one-way ticket back to the city. She never uses the pass. Instead, she hangs about the island for the next five days, passing the time before she can attend Simon’s Labor Day party. There, in a desperate eleventh-hour attempt, she plans to rescue their “relationship” and live a happily ever after existence.
It’s during those five tremulous days that Alex inveigles her way into other people’s lives, using deception, trickery, manipulation and a pretty smile to get what she wants (usually food and accommodation).
She attends house parties, pool parties, goes to the beach, hooks up with a teenage boy, takes drugs, breaks into other people’s homes and all the while she desperately tries to ignore her malfunctioning mobile phone which buzzes with reminders that she has a debt to pay.
It’s a high-wire act that works — up to a point. When she pushes people’s generosity too far, she risks exposing her true self: a desperate young woman who uses others to satisfy her own needs.
Her impoverishment and desperation are in stark contrast to the upper-class wealth that surrounds her: the swimming pools and spas, the flashy houses, the grand gardens and the impressive seaside views.
Her vulnerability, coupled with her audacious, calculating, living-by-her-wits behaviour, makes her an engaging character, someone to cheer on even if her morals might be dubious. But as she builds her fragile house of cards, you keep turning the pages, waiting for the inevitable collapse.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.
Alex is an escort from “the city” (presumably New York) and she’s stolen an unspecified amount of money from a client because she’s behind on her rent.
The client, Dom, keeps sending her menacing text messages and angry voicemails, and Alex, knowing she’s not able to pay anything back, grabs the first lifeline that is thrown her way: she moves into a luxurious summerhouse in the Hamptons with Simon, a wealthy man 30 years her senior, after he invites her to spend August there with him.
But things don’t go according to plan. When Alex embarrasses Simon at a party, she’s escorted to the train station with a one-way ticket back to the city. She never uses the pass. Instead, she hangs about the island for the next five days, passing the time before she can attend Simon’s Labor Day party. There, in a desperate eleventh-hour attempt, she plans to rescue their “relationship” and live a happily ever after existence.
It’s during those five tremulous days that Alex inveigles her way into other people’s lives, using deception, trickery, manipulation and a pretty smile to get what she wants (usually food and accommodation).
She attends house parties, pool parties, goes to the beach, hooks up with a teenage boy, takes drugs, breaks into other people’s homes and all the while she desperately tries to ignore her malfunctioning mobile phone which buzzes with reminders that she has a debt to pay.
It’s a high-wire act that works — up to a point. When she pushes people’s generosity too far, she risks exposing her true self: a desperate young woman who uses others to satisfy her own needs.
Her impoverishment and desperation are in stark contrast to the upper-class wealth that surrounds her: the swimming pools and spas, the flashy houses, the grand gardens and the impressive seaside views.
Her vulnerability, coupled with her audacious, calculating, living-by-her-wits behaviour, makes her an engaging character, someone to cheer on even if her morals might be dubious. But as she builds her fragile house of cards, you keep turning the pages, waiting for the inevitable collapse.
For a more detailed review, please visit my blog.