The Guest

Alex is the protagonist of the novel. Though the novel isn’t told through her first-person point of view, the third-person limited point of view focuses on her feelings, sensations, thoughts, and actions. By using the third-person limited instead of the first person, Cline creates a web of mystery around Alex. Though it’s not directly said, it’s implied that Alex is a sex worker. At 22 years old, she has spent years in New York City, first trying to make it as a model and then surviving by dating wealthy men. Alex has recently lost control of her life. The men who had become her regulars have cut her out of their lives, she owes back rent and her roommates want to kick her out, and she has stolen money and drugs from a dangerous man named Dom. Alex is staying in a luxurious, wealthy suburb for the summer, staying with a man named Simon. Their relationship is built on sex, but Simon doesn’t know that Alex is a sex worker. Alex wants to make things work with Simon so she can have stability and avoid the overwhelming financial problem waiting for her in the city. But Alex gets in her own way. She annoys Simon by flirting with another man, and when he kicks her out of the house, she decides to spend a week figuring out where to stay until Simon’s Labor Day party, sure that Simon will be happy to see her. Alex puts so much stock in the possibility that Simon will take her back that she pushes herself through precarity and danger to get back to him.

Alex is an empathetic person, which is part of what makes her good at seducing people. Her empathy allows her to cut directly to a person’s vulnerabilities, which allows her to fulfill their deepest needs. But Alex also takes advantage of these vulnerabilities for the sake of her own survival, manipulating others in subtle or overt ways. Essentially, she makes herself a mirror to reflect who that person wants to be.

There is an aura of mystery around Alex. It is unclear why she got into sex work, why she doesn’t have anyone to go home to, and why she has no support system. She alludes to her past only to say that there is no traumatic reason why she does what she does. These gaps in Alex’s background information make her an engaging and mysterious character. Her resilience and inner turmoil make her a sympathetic character despite her faults.

The novel follows Alex during the week she spends in the Hamptons waiting to reunite with her ex-boyfriend, Simon. During this week, Alex steadily implodes her life. She avoids phone calls from Dom and leans on pain medication to numb her stress. Alex’s only reprieve from the constant conflict in her life is swimming. Bodies of water force Alex to live in the moment rather than the future. Swimming makes Alex feel cleansed, equal to others, and worthy of her fight for her life. This relief is important because on land, Alex finds herself in a downward spiral. Her use of the pain medications becomes an abuse of drugs, which fogs her judgment. Alex keeps making mistakes that put her in more trouble. For example, she completely misreads the situation with Jack until it’s too late. She also deludes herself into believing that she can avoid Dom and get back together with Simon. Alex’s mistakes and her suppression of reality are byproducts of her survival instinct. In order to keep going, she has to ignore her intuition and the reality of what’s going on around her. Another byproduct of her acute stress is her constant feeling of disassociation. Often, she feels that she is not alive or real. Alex’s journey to stability ends in failure as a major car accident, her drug abuse, and avoiding Dom all catch up to her, culminating in a last-ditch effort to get Simon back. The novel ends ambiguously; the reader doesn’t know what has happened to Alex.