The Disinvited Guest
By Carol Goodman (HarperCollins, 2022)
By weird happenstance, Carol Goodman’s The Disinvited Guest landed on my desk the same week we observed the five-year anniversary of the COVID pandemic lockdown, when people warily questioned every interaction and object for possibly transmitting the virus, which we understood was extremely contagious.
For many of us, jobs and schooling went remote, and many left crowded urban areas to reside in seasonal homes or with family or friends offering more room to spread out. Emotional support often was a low priority, and paranoia and distrust came to dominate our normal, instinctual desire to share and problem-solve in communal ways.
Goodwin harkens back to that era, although in a non-specific way, describing that time, but doesn’t name the pandemic. The story also takes place in an unspecified year; we are to understand it is some time in the future after that earlier pandemic, suggesting the world is forever changed and a progression of pandemics will occur.
In the framework of a mystery, Goodwin provides a skillful interpretation of a retreat gone bad, where paranoia feels justified, being under attack by an invisible force seems very real, and the helplessness and limitations imposed by the place and time feel like an enemy unto themselves.
They have been circumspect in creating this group, paying attention to possible exposure to the virus, responsible attitudes…
Yet, paradoxically, what could be a better escape than an island off the coast of Maine? So when a group of friends, some who met during college, decide to escape there during this new viral outbreak, it sounds like a reasonable undertaking.
They have been circumspect in creating this group, paying attention to possible exposure to the virus, responsible attitudes, and skills that will be helpful. There are some subsets-—couples, a brother and sister (whose parents own the island), previous roommates.The history of the place and the cast of characters both provide drama as we get to know them.
An earlier visitor’s journal found in the house describes the island having once been a site to quarantine immigrants who had exposure to or contracted typhus, coming by ship from places like Ireland in the mid-19th century. A Dr. Harper kept the journal, which is discovered in the novel by Lucy, the book’s narrator. She, like her housemates, already has plenty to worry about.
“Fever Island,” as Goodwin has dubbed it, with its forbidding rock coast and regular fog, feels safe from any possible mainland hostility. (To be safe, they’d left their out-of-state vehicles on the mainland, parked in a building where no one could see them and suspect outsiders’ presence).
They had phones and internet (powered by a windmill), and a skiff. Supplies could be replenished; medical care could be obtained.
Lucy had caught the virus in the previous pandemic, and the siblings had lost their parents to the illness. Everywhere is proof of the tenuousness of the life these drop-outs face and how appropriate their dread and anxiety. Reader memories of their own experiences may return, which amps up the menacing undertones of this book; it is believable in ways we might otherwise dismiss.
Paranoia is justified. On Fever Island, Lucy becomes convinced that a ghost lives there, a predacious bog swallows people whole, and human sacrifice might be what protects others. We’re given two parallel stories, the journal’s and Lucy’s, with mysteries confronted.
And psychologically, we see how hysteria is created, how people start thinking irrationally under duress or given circumstances outside normal experience. Goodwin ties things together with surprises, providing some white-knuckle reading. The real horror of this story is that it could happen again. Can pandemics be disinvited?
Tina Cohen is a Massachusetts-based therapist who spends part of the year on Vinalhaven.
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