The Guest

A few months ago, I finished The Guest by B. A. Paris. I'm usually drawn to nonfiction books, but I like Paris' works because it keeps me immersed and I can finish the book in a day. This would be the third book of hers that I read, after The Therapist and Behind Closed Doors. I think The Guest gave me a different kind of thriller because it is made out of various perspectives, and makes it difficult to figure out who that one "bad person" is. In fact, The Guest accurately portrays the emotional lines of a middle-aged woman trying to settle into good terms with herself, her past, and her family, although in a much more extreme storyline than most other families would go through.

I think the book emphasizes how secrets cannot go on forever, and that people eventually face consequences of their actions. A number of characters end up with death, and the person behind all the confusion actually turns out to be the protagonist Iris. Meanwhile I don't think it is a "win" for Iris either. Although murder can never be justified, and it is still her that was engaged in an affair, she was desperately trying to keep the family from falling apart, both from her past and from Gabriel's guilt with Charlie's death. This led her to continuously trick herself into justifying her actions and manipulate the events to the other characters, successfully keeping her family in one piece. The end line says, "I am Iris Pelley, wife, mother, and murderer." The "wife" and "mother" symbolize what Iris believes her roles are and what she wants to keep safe. The "murderer" symbolizes what she believes she has to become in order to continue being the "wife" and "mother" she wants to be, which is an irony that makes the book especially unique.

The end line fascinated me, as I then realized that in an attempt to conceal her wrongdoing that was kept as a secret for twenty years, and in an attempt to keep the family together, she basically sacrificed everything – including her honesty, morale, and esteem – to end up with nothing but external roles and an even bigger secret she would have to conceal for the rest of her life. I really enjoyed the conflicting emotions Iris went through in the book, and how she eventually ended up opting into self-deceit and deciding to simply frame herself as a wife and mother, attained through bloodshed and exchanged with her own identity.