The Guest Book: A Novel

My 2019 BOTY (so far)
Sometimes I pick up a book, don’t even look at the dust jacket blurb and simply dig in. It seems like the synopsis on the cover can sometimes either be misleading or give too much away. I like to go in blind sometimes. That’s what I did with The Guest Book and it worked out beautifully for me. I think if I had any expectations about this book, it would have been a different reading experience. As it was, I was completely transported to this reality and lived with these characters like they were real people. I also enjoy heavy, multi-generational, historical fiction novels that deal with “isms” and The Guest Book is all that and more.To be completely fair, the first several chapters seem to be meandering and not leading to anything particularly momentous, but like most great authors, Sarah Blake is patient and calmly builds her world brick by brick, so slowly and methodically that you don’t realize she’s walled you in until you’re good and stuck. Once the three generational timelines being to gel and loop back to one another, they become more than the sum of their parts… with the more current timeline informing the earlier ones and vice versa. It’s very effective the way things are set up and foreshadowed, then eventually revealed in pieces and parts the way life actually seems to. Sometimes you get a good, clear answer to your questions about life and family. Sometimes you just don’t. Even worse, sometimes you merely get hints and echoes that only highlight your own lack of knowledge to a more painful degree.I found not only the language and dramatic narrative to be heart wrenching and emotionally involving, but the underlying themes and morality plays as well, if not more. It’s hard to talk about this stuff. Classism, sexism, racism, anti-semitism, where we’ve been and where we’re going, how we are the same and how we are different, what really matters in life, why we’re here, duty and honor to family and society, how you exist as a child and a spouse and a parent at the same time, people we lose too soon and feeling like you’ve been living for so long that you forgot who you used to be. Not to mention what does it mean to be “free” depending on who you are and what path you travel in life. To tackle these issues seriously in any art form can end up coming off as too simplistic… or too complex… or preachy or ill-informed, or any number of a thousand other errors. For me, Sarah Blake absolutely nails it from start to finish, never giving in to established tropes or cliches that usually define the archetypes she molds and shapes throughout The Guest Book.I’m a child of the 70’s so WWII era to the late 60’s was before my time, but every page and every word of dialogue just seems utterly real to me and so many of these characters and scenarios will haunt me for some time to come. It’s clear about halfway through this book that things are headed for an unpleasant climax, but still… when it arrived, it felt like a punch in the gut. I was so invested in these people and pulling for them that when their lives took turns that seemed all too familiar and real to me I couldn’t help but be hopeful, disappointed, devastated, thrilled, surprised and sad.If you like to live with a good, epic, generational, historical drama and be absorbed into the story, The Guest Book is a really great book to dive into. It is a tender and thoughtful examination of the last several decades of American culture through the viewfinder of one family and the friends, co-workers and associates that surround them. In this family’s opposing viewpoints and struggling as cross-purposes, the struggle of humankind is laid bare and examined in minute detail and sweeping arcs. It is by turns, breathtaking, depressing, inspiring and head shakingly frustrating. So many echoes of our current socio-political landscape are familiar here.About the only caveat I can offer is that you probably shouldn’t read this book if you are depressed or prone to getting down from reading sad books. This one IS sad, but in my opinion, it’s sad in the best way possible. Sometimes I think “sad” can be a synonym for “realistic.” This book is both, It doesn’t try to varnish over the great truths of being a human. It just shows humans going through their daily dance of trying to figure out the biggest questions in their individual lives… living, loving, fighting, disagreeing, changing their minds, refusing to change, trying to change the world and having the world change them instead. What more could you want from a book?

I was completely taken by this book. I could not wait to go back to it but dreaded finishing. I saw it on the back cover of the New Yorker and ordered it without knowing anything about it. I have recommended it to my three grown granddaughters. Thank you.

Great story, ultimately, if you can navigate the generations (many with similar names, Evelyn, Evie, et al) intertwined too tightly. But the thrust of the story set against monied wealth derived from dubious wartime associations; the stultifying conventions of traditional family values; alongside the female characters’ fight for emancipation and recognition, is powerful and subtle. The great twists and turns of this novel, take the reader up to the 1960s and beyond, when racial tensions and the fight back of the black community gets hard and real. I loved most of the characters, flawed and emotionally damaged, yet seeking understanding of the other and hope for the future. The family owned island on which much of the action takes place, beautiful as it may be, should in my opinion, sink into the sea….well worth a read.

Readable but bloated. 3 stars because of some preposturous plot lines. overall it is well written but you could wave the ending in for a landing.