Chris Bohjalian always manages to tell a great story and in a way that encompasses its truth, but in The Guest Room he delves into the kind of subjects that make us squeamish—the underbelly of our society, a place most of us never hear about. Richard Chamberlain is a happily married investment banker who agrees to host his younger brother’s bachelor party at his home in ... Read More...
Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands
Sweet sixteen—a time of so many changes. Learning to drive, first dates, preparing for college, and, if you’re Emily Shepard, a nuclear reactor meltdown near your tiny town in Vermont, your parents disappearing, and being evacuated from your school with only the clothes on your back. This is sixteen as seen by Chris Bohjalian in his new novel, Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands. When ... Read More...
The Light in the Ruins
The Light in the Ruins, Chris Bohjalian’s latest novel, is set at the Villa Chimera in Tuscany in 1943, a pastoral estate where the war is largely unseen. The Rosatis are a titled Italian family and while they have one son preparing for the Allied invasion in Sicily and another who works at a museum trying to control the flow of Italian art out of the country, their lives ... Read More...
The Sandcastle Girls
It was as I was nearing the finish of Chris Bohjalian’s latest novel, The Sandcastle Girls, that I was struck by how insulated and sheltered we are in the United States. I say that with a full understanding of recent events and their horrors. What I mean, is that at no time in any of our lives have we had to worry that our country or even our state or city was going to be taken ... Read More...
