by Emma Cline
First published 2023
Alex makes a mistake at a dinner party. The older man she has been living with sends her away with a train ticket back to New York City. Summer is ending on Long Island, but Alex does not get on that train. Her phone is broken and she has little money, yet she stays. She knows how to read what people want from her. Alex moves through the expensive neighborhoods like a shadow, slipping past hedges and gates into a world of wealth that should exclude her. She has one week before the summer holidays end. Desperation drives her from house to house. Her sense of right and wrong shifts as easily as her location. Alex leaves chaos behind her wherever she goes, but she keeps moving forward through the sun-bleached landscape of privilege and power.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, mystery, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Long Island, New York City
Period: Summer
296 pages · Paperback · Chatto Windus