The Guest List

Will’s groomsmen arrive, all of whom went to boarding school with him and Johnno. Duncan, Angus, Oluwafemi, and Peter are all from affluent families, and they share a strong bond from their time at school. Johnno and Will’s bond is stronger than their connections with the others. Johnno went to school on a scholarship, and Will only had the opportunity because his father was the headmaster. They were not as wealthy as the other boys they went to school with. Will’s groomsmen, apart from Johnno, are all extremely successful. Duncan works in economics, Angus is part of his father’s firm, Oluwafemi “Femi” is a surgeon, and Peter works in advertising.

Unlike the others, Johnno has been working at an outdoor adventure camp as an instructor. He tells everyone that he has started a new whiskey business. This is a lie to cover up his own lack of success; later, it is revealed that he had a friend make new labels and simply put them on cheap bottles of whisky from the store.

When Charlie and Hannah arrive on the island, Jules sweeps Charlie away. Hannah, eager to get away from the others, goes to hide in a cave. There, she meets Olivia, Jules’s 19-year-old half-sister and the maid of honor. Olivia struggles with her mental health, and she has issues with self-harm and an eating disorder. She has a tumultuous relationship with Jules; Jules is jealous of the childhood that she feels Olivia had and that their mother, Araminta, deprived her of.

Hannah and Olivia share a cigarette and talk, glad to be away from the others. Olivia tells Hannah all about the breakup with her ex-boyfriend, Callum, but she does not share everything. Olivia reminds Hannah of her sister, Alice, and she feels protective of. During dinner that night, Hannah is uncomfortable and insecure. She feels not beautiful and not rich enough to be among the other guests. Everyone makes conversation at dinner before Charlie and Jules are cajoled into telling everyone how they met; Charlie was Jules’s sailing instructor one summer, and she had a crush on him. Johnno asks if they ever had sex during all their years of friendship, but they play coy and refuse to answer. Hannah, already uncomfortable, sees a masked face in the window and drops her glass of wine.

Back on the night of the wedding, the waitress who screamed tells everyone that she found a body. Aoife tells all the guests to remain inside for their safety. Will’s groomsmen decide that something must be done, and they discuss sending someone outside to investigate. 

The face in the window turns out to be Jules’s father, Ronan. Ronan and Jules have a very contentious relationship, and there is some awkwardness between him and Jules’s mother. The awkwardness is exacerbated by the fact that Ronan has brought along Severine, his new wife. Things are uncomfortable at dinner, and Jules observes the way her friends and family interact and trade barbs.

Jules’s mother, Araminta, stands to give a toast, much to Jules’s chagrin. Araminta speaks about how proud she is of Jules and how her daughter has always known what she wants out of life. Araminta praises Jules for her independence and appears to take the credit for raising Jules to be so strong. Instead of being warmed by her speech, Jules is rankled by it. Will manages to pull her out of her bad mood, however, when he talks about how hard he had to work to “persuade [her] to go on a date” (68). Jules and Will beam at each other, but the thought of the letter makes her faith in him falter.

The conversation moves on to a game called Survival that they used to play back at boarding school. Will was the only one who did not have to do it. Duncan’s wife, Georgina, makes a joke: “I suppose it was harmless,’ Georgina says, ‘it’s not like anyone died, is it?” (72). Johnno appears to have a visceral reaction to Georgina’s statement, immediately remembering how the other boys tied him down and how cold he’d felt that night in the woods. This foreshadows the primary narrative plot point in the novel. Johnno changes the conversation from their boarding school days to brag about his new whiskey business. Hannah openly admires the design of the logo; she was a graphic designer by trade but has been on permanent maternity leave.

Everyone drinks the whisky Johnno brings, but some, like Jules, are less enthused by the taste of it. Jules’s mother leaves the table, and Hannah attempts to persuade Charlie to leave as well. Johnno and the other men begin bullying him to stay. Johnno pities Charlie, especially for what they did to him the weekend of the bachelor party. Later, it is revealed that the pack of men left Charlie drunk and naked on a small island and did not return for him until daybreak. Hannah is unimpressed by how much Charlie wants to fit in with the gang of men.

The men stand up at the table and begin to drum on it, chanting two refrains in Latin over and over, becoming more frenzied as they do so. Hannah is frightened by the display, especially when they let out a roar at the end and appear visibly changed after the ritual. Only Johnno appears to be faking his excitement. According to Angus, the Latin refrain is an amalgamation of the school’s motto and their own chant they created. It means, “do brave deeds and endure” and “if I can’t move heaven, then I shall raise hell” (78). After that, everyone begins drinking in earnest.

Hannah leaves, irritated at Charlie, and comes across Olivia in the other room. Olivia’s bedroom is right next to the dining hall, and she can hear every loud shout and yell from within. 

To get away from the racket, Olivia and Hannah bring along a bottle of vodka and a pack of cigarettes down to the cave. There, they begin talking about Olivia’s breakup again. Olivia tells Hannah about how she put on make-up and created a dating profile with a fake name and pretended to be older. On the dating application, Olivia met a man named Steven who is 15 years older than her. They soon began a torrid love affair. Olivia claims that she ruined their arrangement when she got too drunk at one of Jules’s parties and acted immaturely in front of Steven. She was so drunk that Steven had to put her in a taxi to get her home. Steven did not reply to any of her messages or calls after that, no matter what Olivia did.

When Hannah prompts her to keep going, Olivia is unable to say more, and she can only think about all the blood she remembers from what the readers later learn is her abortion. Hannah and Olivia part ways for the night, and the younger woman runs into Johnno, who tries to get her to sleep with him. She shakes him off and leaves him alone in the darkness, where he begins to hear ghostly voices. Johnno is reduced to tears and tells the voice that whatever happened was not his fault, and he did not intend to do it on purpose.

Back inside, Charlie and Jules have a tense exchange where she accuses him of being jealous. Charlie is insistent that he only wants Jules to be happy; Jules asks if he wrote her the note, and he appears confused by the question. Later, Will and Jules are back in their room when they find seaweed in their bed. Jules is freaked out by this, but Will convinces her that it’s only a practical joke played on them by the ushers. Jules tells Will to get them new sheets and a duvet. Back outside, Aoife comes across a slumped over Johnno. She helps him back inside but notes that “he looked like a man who had seen a ghost” (100). 

Back on the night of the wedding, Femi and three of the ushers make up the search party; they bring along a first-aid kit and head out into the storm in search of the body with a strange, frenetic excitement to them.