The Guest Book

The Guest Book (2019), a novel by American author Sarah Blake, chronicles three generations of the Milton family as they weather love and loss, tragedy and triumph, and the winds of social and political change. Set largely on Crockett's Island off the Maine coast, the story is both family saga and American epic as it spans the 1930s to the present in its examination of the Miltons and their legacy. The Guest Book was selected as an Amazon Best Book of May 2019 and nominated to the longlist for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence; it was also a New York Times bestseller.

The novel opens in the 1930s. Kitty and Ogden Milton enjoy lives of privilege and advantage until tragedy destroys their world. Their eldest son, Neddie, falls to his death from a window of the Miltons’ New York apartment. Kitty is inconsolable, her grief unbearable. With the hope of relieving some of her agony, Ogden aims to get the family out of the city. He buys a small island off the Maine Coast called Crockett's Island. Here, Kitty recovers, and the family resumes the pampered life they enjoyed in New York, entertaining the wealthy and elite in this little haven separate from the rest of the world.

The narrative switches back and forth in time from Kitty and Ogden's story to that of their granddaughter, Evie. Two generations later, in the present day, middle-aged history professor Evie debates whether to keep Crockett's Island in the family. Joanie, Evie's mother, has recently died, leaving the Island to Evie and her cousins. Evie tries to reconcile the family's conflicting feelings about the Island. She recognizes its importance in her family history, but fortunes have dwindled somewhat, and the Island demands a significant amount of resources to stay up and running. And, lately, it doesn't run much at all, having fallen into a nearly ramshackle and rundown state.



In the past again, Kitty takes her social position quite seriously. She places great value on breeding and bloodlines, and she follows the rules of etiquette in both her public and personal life, deferring to her husband because she feels it is the proper thing to do. When one of Ogden's friends asks the Miltons to house a young Jewish boy, Kitty refuses out of fear over how such a situation would look to other people. At this same time, Ogden does business with a German steel manufacturer who likely has connections to the Nazi regime. Taking in the boy is a risk that the family feels they cannot take.

As the narrative unfolds, the three surviving Milton children grow up and encounter their own successes and struggles. Kitty and Ogden's son, Moss, is an aspiring musician. Their daughter, Joanie, fears her epilepsy diagnosis will prevent her from marrying well, an issue of paramount importance to her class-conscious parents. Their other daughter, Evelyn, is the one most like her mother and father.

The story includes two friends of Moss's, Reg Pauling, an African American, and Len Levy, a Jew who have both encountered prejudice as minorities in America. Joanie and Len begin a romantic relationship, but his Jewishness prevents anything serious. Later, Evie learns that she is the product of their brief love affair.



Back in the present, Evie continues to grapple with whether to keep or sell the Island. Instinctively, she wants to hang onto it, but her husband pressures her to sell. Evie feels that much of the past—her own and her family's—remains shrouded in mystery. Joanie was not the most talkative or forthcoming person, and she never took the time to fill in the gaps in the knowledge Evie has about her life and the lives of her family members. Through photos and other items remaining on Crockett's Island, Evie pieces together her family story. Meanwhile, she rents the main house out to Charlie, who comes to the Island as a last wish that he made his father prior to his father's death. Charlie's last name is Levy, and Evie soon discovers that his father is Len. She and Charlie are half-siblings.

In the past, on the night of Evie's conception, there is a massive gala at the main house in honor of Evelyn's engagement. At Moss's invitation, Len and Reg attend. Kitty, Ogden, and their crowd politely tolerate the two strangers. Later, when Joanie and Len are alone together on the beach, Joanie has a seizure. Chaos ensues, and Len and Reg realize that the elitist crowd never really accepted them. When Moss witnesses how his friends are treated, he loses his faith in the future and in humanity. He gets in a rowboat and rows out into the open sea—to his death.

Kitty has now lost another son. She honors Moss's last request and, surmounting her own prejudice and self-imposed social boundaries, she befriends Len and Reg. And to make up for how she treated them, in her will, she leaves Reg Moss's share of Crockett's Island.



After discovering this information, Evie has a deeper understanding of her family, of the ties that bind and those that break, and of the power of forgiveness.