Book Review: The Guest Room by Chris Bohjalian

My first encounter with acclaimed crime writer Chris Bohjalian, The Guest Room raises important questions about sex workers and modern-day slavery but often this theoretical aspect takes hold on the story construction and development.

Definitely, approaching the topic of sex workers requires a lot of empathy and practical knowledge about how it does operate at both an individual and global - network-bounded level. Alexandra, a young Armenian-born girl, was kidnapped and brought to Moscow when she was in her early teens. Used as a sex slave for the pleasure and benefit of the oligarchs, together with other girls she arrives to America where she was hired to strip for a bachelor party. When the party goes bloody wrong, and one girl and a bodyguard are killed, the everyday life of those who hosted and participated at the party are traumatically changed. Richard, the brother of the groom-to-be is particularly affected as he hosted the debauche and got entangled with Alexandra. The chain of events is a test of trust for his marriage but also reveals the dark sides of his fellows participants as Alexandra is caught into the race for saving her life.

Bohjalian, born from an Armenian father whose parents survived the genocide, introduces a lot of historical details as the background story, particularly during and after the last years of the Soviet Union. The wise insights into the circumstances a woman/a girl can end up as a sexworker, against her will, may bring more empathy and understanding into the topic.

However, from the story-telling point of view, the story of The Guest Room is simplistically linear, without paying too much attention to the other characters and lacking memorable narrative twists. The comparison between Alexandra´s painful teenage years and Melissa´s, Richard´s daughter first steps out of childhood, has a potential to be eventually developed that haven´t lead too far.

I am glad I finally had the chance to discover Bohjalian but I hope there are much better books by him. On the other hand, the storyfied information about sex workers is noteworthy and good to keep in mind empathically when reading or talking about the topic.

Rating: 3 stars