Alex is twenty-two, broke, running from people in the city she owes money to, and spending August on Long Island with a much older man who is done with her by the second chapter. He puts her on a train. She doesn’t get on it. Instead she spends six days drifting between the summer houses of the east end, reading each new room fast enough to be handed a drink and a bed, telling whatever story fits, because she has decided that if she can just last until Labor Day he’ll take her back. Cline writes her without excuse or judgment, and the tension is pure dread.
The Guest