Sarah Blake, THE GUEST BOOK

An ambitious, beautifully written novel about white privilege, family patterns among generations, what it means to stand by and keep silent in the face of injustice and inhumanity, and the possibilities (and impossibilities) for atonement. Other readers objected to the shuttling back and forth in time as well as in and out of different people's perspectives (it's told in third-person, focalized through different characters), but maybe because I read this in only three days, I didn't lose track of the time periods and characters. In contrast to other readers who felt that white privilege had been in some way endorsed, I read the ending differently. (Spoiler alert.) In having the only Black main character providing a crucial lost piece of information to a daughter of white privilege, Blake suggests that his POV is deeply relevant, a piece of history that is both essential to this (her) particular story and more broadly meaningful for all of us. Well-drawn, psychologically coherent characters and some heartbreaking moments. On par with Blake's earlier historical novel, THE POSTMISTRESS. Recommend to fans of Ann Patchett, Mary Beth Keane, and Juliet Grames.