A book a day: Emma Cline: the guest

Original Language: English.

Third novel that I read by Emma Cline and, although not even the previous Harvey Not this The guest They are surrounded by the stir that was his feminine member of the Manson clan in The girlsI do begin to recognize a certain pattern, a personality profile of this young Californian writer, and although her novels have not yet reached the high levels that some exaggerated critic – there are – has assigned her, I like her evolution and courage when facing profiles, say, complicated, at least, nothing to use. Although he has not put himself on the site of a manipulated and criminal hippy, or in that of a powerful and predatory producer, for this novel he chooses the comfortable third person and embodies Alex, a young Californian who is involved in a forced transit, physical and psychological, when one of the men with which he usually lived together, temporarily, of his life and is forced and he is forced. They have thrown out of their home – to plan where it will be for the next seven days.

At that time the novel takes a reminiscent air of two classics: as Holly Golightly, the occupation that Alex has until that moment to make a living does not just become clear. It seems to have no qualms about using sex as a compensation in exchange for men – young and not so much – which frequents their time, their space, some a bit dark corner of their existences. And as Holden Caulfield has to face, in an early age, to the imposition of adventure, to uncertainty, to that vagar that may seem so attractive as long as it is not the only option. At that point, Alex’s future for friends, former couples who besieged her, small robberies to which she is forced to survive, friendships to resort to spend time at a party, in a house, she becomes the knot of the novel, perhaps a somewhat brief plot and that she would have been equally resolved in sixty or seventy pages less, in which she would have thanked her in The girls) It would have been more direct, more daring and even procaz. Because perhaps we are talking about a Z generation novel in which the neglect and poor passion define the steps to take: Alex only contemplates spending the next day and will use whoever is needed to solve the next night. It will behave cruelly precisely who else looks like her and more sincerely nakes her soul. But their reactions are warm and calculated, and even the text seems to suggest that it uses its physical attractiveness as a pure transactional value. There is no moral message, just empty and abulia, and I don’t know what to interpret it.

Emma Cline’s Ulad outlined: here