The Guest Room » Book Review

The Premise of The Guest Room

[dropcap]In[/dropcap] The Guest Room, Richard is a married investment banker and father to a nine year-old daughter. He decides to host his younger brother's bachelor party in his own suburban home. He and his wife strongly suspect that the groom and his friends will hire "female entertainment." The couple shake their heads over it, but figure it will all be harmless.

After Richard's wife and daughter leave to spend the night at Grandma's house, the party guests arrive and so do two strippers. Accompanied by stern bodyguards, the girls seem unusually willing to push boundaries. Soon, the raucous party is descending into a bacchanalia... and then an orgy.

But then, everything turns on a dime. The girls turn murderous, killing their bodyguards before peeling off into the night. In the days following the bloodbath, the police confirm the nasty truth... the girls were sex slaves, captives of a human trafficking operation.

Soon, Richard's entire life is spiraling out of control. His marriage and job are on the rocks, and so is his mind. Moreover, his thoughts keep returning to the guest room, where he looked into the eyes of the girl called Alexandra. Who is she? How did she fall through the cracks of the world and wind up the prisoner of brutal and merciless captors? And most urgently — where is she now, and what has become of her?

The Guest Room... It's About Misogyny and Rape Culture

[dropcap]Truly,[/dropcap] The Guest Room was no tour de force, but it was, at times, forceful. For one thing, Bohjalian comes down hard on sex slavery, as one would hope. Oddly, though, I didn't find his terrible and graphic depictions of rape and degradation to be the most powerful part of the book, although they most certainly shook me to my core. Something struck me even harder, and that was the author's characterizations of everyday misogyny and male entitlement.

Bohjalian was extremely purposeful, I think, in crafting certain characters that represent modern-day, American rape culture as we know it. In The Guest Room, the character Philip and his buddies represent living, breathing, fraternity rape jokes. They're the guys who palm a girl's ass in a crowded concert venue and yell in her ear, "You're the prettiest girl here!" They're the bros who DIY freshman orientation banners reading, "SHE'S CALLED YOU DADDY FOR 18 YEARS, NOW IT'S OUR TURN!!!" They're the fellas who craft public statements on behalf of their rapist sons, writing that six months in prison is a "steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action." All put together, these boys and men create one giant, leering eyeball, one clammy, groping hand, one lecherous, catcalling voice, and make up the body that is rape culture.

Bohjalian did nice work in showing us such characters who promote a culture of rape without being overt and intentional rapists themselves. According to Bohjalian, those men can be our husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons. We know them. They live normal, law-abiding lives, and yet they contribute to a social disease because they do not truly empathize with women. I stand up and applaud this angle of The Guest Room. It needs to be said. It needs to be understood.

What Bohjalian did not do was present us with any insightful characterization of rapists or traffickers. He had ample opportunity to do so. In The Guest Room, there were many men and women responsible for holding Alexandra and other girls captive, torturing them and arranging for them to be repeatedly, limitlessly violated, brutalized, and raped. Perhaps Bohjalian didn't want to get into the mindset of people capable of that kind of evil. Maybe he flat-out couldn't. I know that if I tried, I could not mentally tap into that deepest malevolence. I imagine that it would be very, very difficult to create a character with that kind of nature. For whatever reason, Bohjalian did not go there.

The Bottom Line

[dropcap]If[/dropcap] Bohjalian had done it, if he'd written comprehensible portrayals of a full spectrum of misogynist behavior — from everyday soft sexism to full-on trafficking and exploitation — then I think The Guest Room could have made it to the next level. As it stands, however, Bohjalian only managed to nail down part of that spectrum.

Because of that, The Guest Room is a decent, mid-tier suspense novel that engages the compelling issues of misogyny, rape culture, and human exploitation. The book gets big points for its moments of brilliance. But I craved broader, more ambitious characterizations, all to culminate in an even greater thematic punch.

[rating stars="three-half-stars"]