The Guest Room

The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian   336 pages

I’ve been a huge fan of Chris Bohjalian’s since he burst onto the literary scene with his Oprah Book Selection, Midwives. The Guest Room is his 18^th book, and, I believe, his finest.  As I Facebooked to Bohjalian: Oh Wow! Oh WoW! Oh WOw! OH WOW! 

Richard Chapman, his wife, Kristin, and their young daughter, Melissa, live in Bronxville, New York, a suburb of Manhattan. Richard is an investment banker, and Kristen is a history teacher. Richard’s idiot younger brother, Phillip, is finally getting married and Richard and Kirstin agree to let the bachelor party. Kristen takes Melissa into Manhattan to spend the weekend with her mother, as the couple is sure strippers have been included in the evening’s festivities.

Phillip’s friend, Spencer, doesn’t just hire strippers; he hires call girls. The girls, Alexandra and Sonja, arrive with what the guys believe to be bodyguards. As the evening progresses, stripping turns into sex. Richard finds himself enamored with Alexandra and alone with her, both naked, in the guest room. No spoiler here, so you’ll have to read the book to find out what happens.

It’s after Alexandra and Richard return to the party that all hell breaks loose. Sonja jumps one of the bodyguards and repeatedly plunges a knife into his neck. Blood is everywhere. Everywhere. The gunshots are heard and the other bodyguard’s blood is adding to the horror. The girls throw on some clothes and escape before the guys can come to their senses enough to call 911.

The story is told in alternative chapters: Richard and Kristen’s point of view and Alexandra’s viewpoint. Readers soon learn that the girls aren’t college students trying to earn money for tuition; they are Armenian girls who have been kidnapped and used as sex slaves.

There are so many threads in this one story. How did Alexandra and Sonja get caught up in this life? Where are they now? Are their kidnappers, the Russians, looking for them? Will Richard and the guys go to jail for having hired prostitutes? Will Richard and Kristen’s marriage survive? What will Melissa think of her father? How will the family ever go back to their home and life, knowing that it had been a crime scene?

Be prepared to stay up late as Bohjalian ties all the unanswered questions together into a riveting novel that left me gasping by the end. I give The Guest Room, 6 out of 5 stars.