EA young woman with no history, traveling in an area that has spawned literary myths but has recently become known primarily for its priceless real estate. Alex is the name of the young woman, from whom we learn little more than that, her name. The area is the Hamptons, exclusive beachfront communities on Long Island just outside New York. Neither place name is found in Emma Cline’s novel “The Invitation”, New York is always just “the city” here, the Hamptons remain a landscape description of endless beaches and huge houses. It is this technique of cutting out that opens up an imaginary space and that Emma Cline, one of the most successful American authors of her generation, practices meticulously in this book.
empty houses. empty pools. Empty people reduced to names. Or on embodying one’s own social status: the man. The teenager. The child. the nanny The woman. “Alex,” it says of the novel’s protagonist, “was a sort of social accoutrement—all that was required was her presence, the approximate size and shape of a young woman.” She can be endured by wealthy men. Alex steals, cheats, takes drugs, sneaks in on other men again and again.
What she can do, and she can do it like a sleepwalker, but has nothing literary and glamorous about it, like imposture would be, it’s a sheer method of survival. There are other young women in New York and the Hamptons who live like this, Alex knows them, recognizes them immediately. On the side of men with money.
Cold novel of escalating disillusionment
For Alex, that’s Simon, who she lives with for a few months until Alex makes a mistake and he kicks her out. And then there’s Dom, not quite as rich, whose drugs and money Alex stole anyway and who’s chasing after her. Jack, the next contestant, is only seventeen and has mental health issues, but that doesn’t stop Alex. And so she drifts, 22 years old and pretty, towards an end that Emma Cline then omits again. It’s the only weakness of a coldly accurate novel of escalating disillusionment. Because it seems as if not only his main character, but also his author didn’t know what to do in the end.
As luck would have it, a suspected Long Island woman killer who dumped his victims on Gilgo Beach was recently arrested on Long Island. It’s not as exclusive as the beaches in Emma Cline’s novel. But this news adds another to the story of Alex and the other girls Spin code, as if it wasn’t scary enough already. Back in 2016, Emma Cline’s debut historical novel, The Girls, about the murderous Manson family, caused a stir (and a hefty advance).
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