The Guest
Emma Cline
Emma Cline
For my boyfriend’s birthday, we spent a few days at Landa—a hotel on the Burgos-to-Madrid highway that I recommend to everyone I talk to for several reasons: 1) its food, 2) the constant feeling that you were born into the English royal family and not in Logroño, and 3) its indoor pool, which enhances that feeling tenfold.
As always, I brought several books because nothing is worse than having just one book for a trip and not liking it. That ruins your whole trip. Always, always, take more than one or two.
I knew nothing about Emma Cline’s latest novel, The Guest, but a few days before, I listened to an interview she did on the Hotel Jorge Juan podcast, where she talked about her obsession with swimming pools. And indeed, these water settings serve as the backbone of the story: we learn about the various experiences Alex goes through via the ocean, pools, or showers in Long Island. That pool at Landa I mentioned couldn’t have been a better place to read this book.
What I loved most about this psychological thriller is how you dive into and connect with a character (Alex, 22 years old) about whom, in reality, you know nothing. You can guess she’s an escort, but it’s never mentioned. You know she’s a young woman very self-aware, conscious of her seductive power over men, how they perceive her, her physical appearance... But you don’t know why she behaves this way or what traumas make her act as she does. You don’t even know her last name. The mystery and the craft of creating an almost ethereal character are what fully immerse you in the story: it makes you want to know more about her.
I loved the silent screams of contrast in the story’s settings. It’s set in the Hamptons, and what might initially seem like what we all imagine—luxury cars, people playing tennis in striped polos while chauffeurs wait at the door, or gardeners arranging bouquets of peonies in their mansions—actually hides profound sadness and loneliness.
Within this appearance and these clichés lies a central theme of the narrative: the tension between different social classes and how Alex wants to integrate into them, no matter where on the scale. For her, everything is a transaction, which is why, at times, she seems devoid of feelings. She is completely disconnected from reality because she only wants to fulfill her immediate desires.
In the interview, Emma also talked about some characters who inspired this story, and I loved the reference to the character of Mr. Ripley. Alex shares traits with him: she’s an outsider trying to infiltrate a world she doesn’t belong to—hence the book’s title, which couldn’t be more fitting.
When you think she can’t go any further, she takes another step. When you think she’s about to give up, she puts on her makeup again, dons her pearls and luxury clothes, and pretends nothing happened. That self-deception is what allows the protagonist to survive. I wasn’t sure if I hated or loved Alex—her morality was quite ambiguous at many points—but for 300 pages, she kept me hooked. Emma manages to delve into a character who operates outside expected boundaries while maintaining her signature themes: the experience of being a girl, the dynamics between men and women, sexual power, and social rules.
As for the ending—no spoilers here—but there was a lot of controversy, and honestly, I don’t understand why. It seemed to me like the most fitting conclusion. As the author herself says: “The only certain ending is death; everything else is continuity. I’m interested in stories that acknowledge life’s messiness.”
P.S. The novel that inspired Emma Cline for this story is The Swimmer by John Cheever (it’s already on my reading list).
Note
“But then, like all feelings, it passed.”