“The Guest List” by Lucy Foley
The Guest List is a book that didn’t grab me at first. In fact, for the first few chapters, I thought I was in for an excruciating read. But once the character introductions are out of the way, Foley gives us a fast-paced web of a story that is almost impossible to put down.
On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.
But the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?
I came upon this book knowing nothing about either the author or the story. It was one of those books I picked up at one time or another when I wanted to add something completely unknown to my reading pile. And so I didn't know what to expect going in.
And as I got through the first few chapters, I was afraid I'd picked a dud.
For all of Lucy Foley's abilities as the creator of what turned out to be a book with expertly intricate story and character, I have to say she really stumbled with the introductory chapters. Because she chooses to introduce the characters by making them have incredibly unrealistic conversations that outline their shared history in a way that no one would ever do in real life. The sort of scenes where characters say stuff like:
"Do you remember how we were such good friends at school?"
"Yes, but only the three of us. It wasn't until the third year that we got to know Bob."
"I remember, but after that one event, we all bonded in a way that lasts to this day."
No one talks like this, and not only is it incredibly painful to read, it's an immediate red flag that an author is going to be all tell and no show. It's almost as if this were an early draft in which Foley was simply putting in all the information and simply forgot to go back and rewrite these scenes.
But don't let these early few scenes put you off. If you can get through the awkward early chapters, once we've been introduced to all the characters, the story really picks up and essentially becomes unputdownable.
Foley has created a wonderful web of story and character. As it progresses and actions and interactions build and feed on each other, we are gradually shown how each character is somehow connected with the others. At first, it's all obvious, with old and known friendships. Then, we discover the secrets shared by certain characters that others don't know about. And then we find all the unexpected connections, some known by one character but kept hidden, and some discovered on the night. And with each snippet of information, we, the reader, get to make another connection as Foley strings us long.
But what I really like it that while the book is sold as a murder mystery, we don't actually know until very close to the end whether it is or not. Through very clever use of flash-forwards, we learn that someone thinks they saw a body. So we don't know who is dead or even if someone is dead, meaning we're not simply working out whodunnit, but where anything was actually done at all. Was this a murder? An accident? Or an elaborate prank? Until the end, we have no way of knowing.
The Guest List is the best kind of whodunnit. Foley has created a cast of fully-rounded characters placed in an isolated location with no escape, forced to pull at the strings of their relationships until all the secrets and lies are uncovered. Despite the shaky start, by the end, I could barely put the book down until I could discover the truth that was being so perfectly teased.
Trigger Warning: Self Harm
