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Extracts

Extract: The Guest by Emma Cline

7 books about the dark side of growing up

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Reading lists

7 coming-of-age books about the dark side of growing up

The Guest

An engrossing, unsettling summer read from the author of the global phenomenon The Girls 
 
‘Take it to the beach and savour every page’ Rob Doyle, Observer 
‘Beach reading at its finest’ Daily Mail 
 
The summer shimmers with wealth, privilege and promise on Long Island, but Alex is no longer welcome... 
 
Alex is a young woman teetering on the edge. Behind on her rent and with nothing to keep her in New York she agrees to spend August by the beach, in the lavish house of the older man she’s been seeing. 
 
After one misstep at a dinner party she’s dismissed with a ride to the station and a ticket back to the city. But Alex decides to stay on the island, charming her way into the lives of the dazzlingly wealthy set who live there and leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Just how long can she keep going before she’s found out? 
 
‘The ideal mix of hazy summer glamour and simmering threat for compulsive beach reading’ Megan Nolan

Sultry and engrossing, with a note of menace, it's a gorgeously smart affair whose deceptive lightness conceals strange depths and an arresting originality . . . take it to the beach and savour every page

Drawing the reader inexorably on to the heightened, rug-pulling denouement, this is beach reading at its finest

Every sentence as sharp as a scalpel . . . tantalizing

At once chilling and eminently evocative of the rarefied world it portrays . . . a definite contender for Status Vacation Book of 2023

The ideal mix of hazy summer glamour and shimmering threat for compulsive beach reading... A gripping, almost ghastly book

Megan Nolan, author of ACTS OF DESPERATION

The Girls was exceptional; The Guest, with its exquisite pacing and deliciously muddled moral compass, is even better

Atmospheric and at times incandescent

Cline's writing at its very best - hypnotically propulsive, viscerally disquieting, and moving in the most unpredictable ways

The tension never wavers . . . This is rich material for Cline, who trains a chilly eye on the preposterous affluence and exclusivity of that part of the world

The Girls was exceptional; The Guest...is even better... Compulsively readable... The Guest is as refreshing as a dip in a cool pool on a hot day

As bracing as saltwater... Cline possesses unmistakable talent; her bursts of genuine originality and startling insight make that clear

A tale of the ultimate grifter. Doused in ambiguity and foreboding

A searing portrayal of the precariat? Or a slick summer thriller? The answer is: both . . . you won't be able to look away

This unsettling but gripping novel takes us deep into the mind of a woman living a shadowy half-life

Crucial reading for any young woman

Undeniably compelling and atmospheric... a poolside-worthy page-turner

A taut, tense novel... The Guest is a strong follow-up... Her [Cline's] prose is limpid and propulsive, sustaining an atmosphere of dread.

A thrilling dissection of survival and how far its protagonist will (or can) go to achieve it

Cline has a crime writer's gift for revelatory storytelling, ramping up tension like an HBO pro

A dream-like, foreboding novel and worthy follow-up to the sensation The Girls

The Guest is everything I look for in a novel: cool, subtle, clinical

Nicole Flattery, author of NOTHING SPECIAL

The talented Ms. Cline . . . Her prose is drifty and wire-taut, easy on the eye, with an awful undertow of unease that never lets up. The pathology brilliantly observed by The Guest would not feel so edgy if it were not perilously close to an aspirational ideal

I loved every moment of The Guest: the intensity, the control, the atmosphere, the psychological escalation, the astonishing social observation, the profound and devastating visions of the void achieved with flicks of the wrist, the way it lets nobody off the hook and yet is not without deep humanity

The Guest... cements Cline's place as one of America's great contemporary stylists

The wealthy clique depicted in Cline's unsettling second novel is by turns boorish and menacing - but you won't be able to look away

[The Guest’s] atmosphere is equally apprehensive [as The Girls] and Cline’s eye for the fragility of insider-outsiders is as gimlet-sharp as before

The Guest… [is] as relentlessly spellbinding as her debut

Emma Cline excels at writing novels suffused with the kind of foreboding atmosphere which makes it difficult to tear yourself away… Every page is brimming with tension

One of my favourite types of books is where the entire story unfolds over a week… Beautiful, poetic, and addicting — I finished it faster than the time span of the story itself

Emma Cline is the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of The Girls, the story collection Daddy and The Guest. Cline's stories have been published in the New Yorker, Granta, the Paris Review and Best American Short Stories. She received the Plimpton Prize from the Paris Review and was chosen as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists.

'The tension never wavers' Guardian 
‘Sultry and engrossing’ Observer 
 
Summer's almost over and Alex is no longer welcome... 
 
Alex is a young woman teetering on the edge. Behind on her rent and with nothing to keep her in New York she agrees to spend August by the beach, in the lavish house of the older man she’s been seeing. 
 
After one misstep at a dinner party she’s dismissed with a ride to the station and a ticket back to the city. But Alex decides to stay on the island, charming her way into the lives of the dazzlingly wealthy set who live there and leaving a trail of destruction behind her. Just how long can she keep going before she’s found out? 
 
‘A delicious, dark-sided novel’ Guardian 
‘Eerily captivating’ Elle 
‘Compulsively readable’ Independent

The Girls

VINTAGE CLASSICS' AMERICAN GOTHIC SERIES 
Spine-tingling, mind-altering and deliciously atmospheric, journey into the dark side of America with nine of its most uncanny classics. 
 
A gripping and dark fictionalised account of life inside the Manson family from one of the most exciting young voices in fiction. 
 
If you're lost, they'll find you... 
 
Evie Boyd is fourteen and desperate to be noticed. 
 
It's the summer of 1969 and restless, empty days stretch ahead of her. Until she sees them. The girls. Hair long and uncombed, jewelry catching the sun. And at their centre, Suzanne, black-haired and beautiful. 
 
If not for Suzanne, she might not have gone. But, intoxicated by her and the life she promises, Evie follows the girls back to the decaying ranch where they live. 
 
Was there a warning? A sign of what was coming? Or did Evie know already that there was no way back? 
 
'Taut, beautiful and savage, Cline's novel demands your attention' Guardian

Daddy

The stories in Emma Cline's stunning first collection consider the dark corners of human experience, exploring the fault lines of power between men and women, parents and children, past and present.

Cline is an astonishingly gifted stylist, but it is her piercing understanding of modern humiliation that makes these stories vibrate with life...brilliant

Fans of Cline will delight in the author's razor-sharp observations and penchant for storytelling

Cline is particularly good at locking in the witty detail that speaks volumes... These expertly constructed stories withhold key information... the pleasures here lie in an appreciation of Cline's skilful and absorbing craft

These stories live in the odd corners of the world, Cline's talent at uncovering the seedy and somehow bringing it to beautiful light is brilliant. These are understated gems

When I read Emma Cline I think of Mary Gaitskill's psychological acuity and of Joy Williams's sardonic gravitas. And yet something about Cline's intimate tone, her talent for conjuring the feeling of being alive, is entirely and uniquely her own

Cline is...adept at swirling little eddies of unease into motion... [In Daddy] the undercurrents of the unspoken, the unspeakable, carry you along

Cline's approach is cool and crisp...  there's a suggestive queasiness to these bleak, well-crafted tales

Crackles with the darkness inherent in everyday relationships. Examining everything from masculinity, male power and the small misunderstandings that can have life-changing consequences

Daddy is a stunning collection of stories that plunges deep into the dark corners of the human experience

'Taut, beautiful and savage' Guardian 
 
A man travels to his son's school to deal with the fallout of a violent attack and to make sure his son will not lose his college place. But what exactly has his son done? And who is to blame? 
 
A young woman trying to make it in LA, working in a clothes shop while taking acting classes, turns to a riskier way of making money but will be forced to confront the danger of the game she's playing. 
 
And a family coming together for Christmas struggle to skate over the lingering darkness caused by the very ordinary brutality of a troubled husband and father. 
 
 Subtle, sophisticated and displaying an extraordinary understanding of human behaviour, these stories from the best-selling author of The Girls are unforgettable. 
______________________ 
 
PRAISE FOR DADDY: 
'It is her piercing understanding of modern humiliation that makes these stories vibrate with life...brilliant' Brandon Taylor 
'Razor-sharp' Evening Standard 
'Cline's talent at uncovering the seedy and somehow bringing it to beautiful light is brilliant' Daisy Johnson 
'Something about Cline's intimate tone, her talent for conjuring the feeling of being alive, is entirely and uniquely her own' Rachel Kushner 
'A stunning collection of stories that plunges deep into the dark corners of the human experience' Dazed

Emma Cline

A moving story about memory and time that shows Cline is only strengthening her powers

Cline writes vividly about the trappings of the elite – the private jets, the heirloom watches – as well as their sad social cost in a story that feels immersive, elegiac, and very real

Cline can always be counted on to deliver a sharp portrait of an uneasy mind... incisive, empathetic, and searing

Cline’s most ambitious novel yet… a book about consciousness, memory, and the strange, pressurised intimacy of a life you know is nearly over… Darkly funny, formally hypnotic, and profoundly moving, it is already one of the most anticipated novels of the second half of the year

Crushing and psychologically astute, Cline’s fourth novel confirms her reputation as one of the freshest voices in contemporary American fiction

'Brilliant, exceptional... it broke my heart. A miracle of a novel' SAMANTHA HARVEY 
'Sublime... completely gripping... a wonder' MARK HADDON 
'Her best book yet. Completely extraordinary' DAISY JOHNSON 
‘A real feat... the writing really, really pops' JEM CALDER*A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK 2026 in: BBC, Publishers Weekly, Lit Hub, Bookstr, Glossary, Paper Trails* 
 
A mesmerising portrait of an ageing man’s last pilgrimage, from the bestselling author of The Girls and The Guest 
 
A private plane cuts through the winter night, somewhere over Greenland. David, a retired executive, sits back in his leather seat, playing solitaire on his phone. Click. Click. Drag. Click. The notebook in his jacket pocket is filled with familiar phrases, urgent reminders to himself, but he struggles to recognize his own handwriting. 
 
A mystery, among many mysteries. The world, once so knowable, has been rendered inscrutable. 
 
This is what David knows: Cody, his assistant, asleep in the seat next to him, will shepherd him along the voyage. A stopover in London. Dinner with his adult daughter. A meeting in France with an old friend, estranged for decades. 
 
His final destination is Zurich. 
 
David glides through hotel rooms and airports and foreign cities, running out the clock on his mortal life. His grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house. The losses and missteps that punctuate a life. 
 
As David’s arrival in Zurich looms, an exquisitely rendered portrait of an unravelling mind emerges, both darkly humorous and profoundly moving. Hypnotic and startlingly original, Switzy probes the depths of human consciousness, revealing what a man is left with when the accomplishments and compromises that have defined him, and the illusions he's relied on, vanish.

Emma Cline

Praise for Switzy

Masterly, deeply moving

A moving story about memory and time that shows Cline is only strengthening her powers

Cline writes vividly about the trappings of the elite – the private jets, the heirloom watches – as well as their sad social cost in a story that feels immersive, elegiac, and very real

Masterly, deeply moving

A moving story about memory and time that shows Cline is only strengthening her powers

Cline writes vividly about the trappings of the elite – the private jets, the heirloom watches – as well as their sad social cost in a story that feels immersive, elegiac, and very real

Masterly, deeply moving

A moving story about memory and time that shows Cline is only strengthening her powers

Cline writes vividly about the trappings of the elite – the private jets, the heirloom watches – as well as their sad social cost in a story that feels immersive, elegiac, and very real

Books by Emma Cline

Articles featuring Emma Cline

Extract: The Guest by Emma Cline

7 coming-of-age books about the dark side of growing up

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