2023-05-28 05:20:00
On Long Island, a girl adrift among the ultra-rich and the “son of”, by the American novelist author of “The Girls”, the first novel which earned her a two million dollar contract.
How do we recognize “the other girls” ? “Vivid, pigmented lipstick”, usually red. “High-heeled shoes, which they had probably put on when entering the restaurant.” Short dress, handbag. “Girls disguised as girls.” Of the “girls» in the plural, as in Emma Cline’s first novel, The Girls (La Table Ronde, 2016), which earned the young Californian (27 years old at the time, 34 today) a two million dollar contract. We were then in the late 60s and 14-year-old Evie was joining a band of girls we met in a park, “as racy and reckless as sharks cleaving the waves”. The “girls” here are of another race. They are not found in parks or ranches. They don’t search the trash cans, but are offered their glasses, their meals and the rest. They wait in hotel bars drinking sparkling water. According to the advertisement, they are worth «six cents roses», but the more the years pass, the more the price decreases. Alex is one of them and, at 22, stranded on Long Island after finding herself in a mess in New York, she finds herself already withered.
The Guest opens on a beach setting, a space of transition and an image of a possible friction between the worlds. From the second sentence, Alex enters the sea and the entire novel will therefore be internally focused (this was also the case with the previous one, Harvey, in 2021, which imagined the day of Harvey Weinstein under house arrest before his verdict), entirely immersed in the conscience of this girl of whom we know little except that a man to whom she owes money is pursuing her for his calls (the telephone is important here: Alex charges and discharges in mirror mode). For the month of August, she found refuge with Simon, fifty years old.“thick hair” erected “Saviour”. Everything goes as planned (one chapter out of the eleven), until the said fifty-something finds her in a swimming pool with another, younger one, and he pays her without delay for her return ticket. Just a big misunderstanding, thinks Alex: rather than going home (to go where?), she decides to stay in the area and wait the seven days before the next party organized by Simon. “So she would come in. She would go straight to Simon. She would apologize, she would appease him. After that ? Simon would take it back because he had organized this game, everyone would achieve their goal, and everything would be fine. Line break : “It was obvious, now that she thought about it. What was less: how to occupy these next six days.
A figure of a parasite
Since it’s an Emma Cline novel, we suspect that “the guest” in question will not be frankly welcome. But in the meantime let’s go back to the beach. “In the water, she looked like anyone. A young woman swimming alone, nothing strange about that. Impossible to know if she was in her place or not. In fact, the floating Alex is in her place nowhere between the ultra-rich and the “sons of”. He is a figure of a parasite – but who is neither more nor less than the ultra-rich and the “sons of”. From the outset, in a few sentences, she lets herself be carried away by the current and fails to reach the shore. “That’s it – that’s the end.” But no, since it’s the beginning and she begins to swim parallel to the coast to get out of this bad situation. The book holds in this double movement: to be swept away and at the same time to manage to tack in troubled waters. For a week, Alex seizes opportunities, finds places to sleep, ways to binge and kill time by taking advantage of various scenarios – which gives a playful side to drifting. “Sometimes it was better to just say yes, to see how far it could go.” How far is the question.
“I am Alex, a friend of the family”, our heroine later says under pills to a nanny to convince her to let her take care of a child (whose parents are members of the private beach club). What will she do? Eating a burger at the family’s expense, chaining beers, entertaining the bartender. When the latter offers her to smoke a cigarette, she follows him behind, towards a dark alley, near the garbage cans, and crosses like that the social strata from one page to another, simply by pushing open a double door. Nothing will happen to this child. Other things will happen, but she will be at Simon’s on D-Day: late and ideally defeated, as it should be in these literary lands.
Emma Cline, the guest, translated from English (United States) by Jean Esch. The Round Table, 320 pp., €23 (ebook: €16.99).
#Guest #Emma #Cline #moving #sands #Liberation