Join host David Hartmann and fellow Columbia alumni as the book club discusses The Guest by Emma Cline. Our July book selection is from Jim Trainor (CC 1983) who will introduce the book. He writes, “I can’t get this strange, funny, highly anxiety-provoking novel out of my mind. The young female protagonist, locked in a nightmare predicament of her own creation, is highly unsympathetic; yet I found myself rooting for a happy resolution—perversely, because her skills at social manipulation are so uncanny, they sparked my admiration.”

The Guest is longlisted for the 2024 PEN/Faulkner Award. In Cline’s novel Alex is “a grifter wandering through a pricey, dreamlike summer playground looking for her next mark.” Set in the East End of Long Island, Alex spends the week leading up to Labor Day moving from one place to the next, a cipher leaving destruction in her wake. “Under Cline’s command, every sentence as sharp as a scalpel, a woman toeing the line between welcome and unwelcome guest becomes a fully destabilizing force.”—The New York Times

Date: Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Times: 6:30PM Central, 7:30PM Eastern, 4:30PM Pacific. For those in our international community the book club starts at 12:30AM London time on July 25.

Location: Zoom Video Conference

Cost: Free