Review: 
The Night Guest opens with elderly Ruth fearing she can hear and smell a tiger in her house–in Australia. One of the great pleasures of this book is its unreliable narrator, unreliable not because she’s deceptive but because her mind isn’t what it used to be and may be getting worse. Yet the phantom of the tiger presages what may be a real danger: the arrival of a woman named Frida who claims to be a government carer. Is she, or is she fleecing Ruth?
Ruth’s narration leaves just enough room for the reader to come to their own conclusions about her and Frida. Some things are left diaphanous, but not so hazy as to cause confusion. On top of that, the prose is terrific: distinctive but not overbearingly poetic. McFarlane capture fine states of feeling or consciousness with her language and imagery. I really delighted in reading it.
Not so delightful is the nature of what’s going on, or even the suspicion of it. My grandmother, who died a few years ago, suffered from dementia. She had an excellent aide, but my parents eventually had to put her in a nursing home close to where they live. Even the best of those places upset me, and it was hard for me to see my grandmother–the smartest person in my family–lose herself. This recent experience made it difficult to continue at times.
I also found myself thinking about Frida’s race and physicality–she’s a brown-skinned and heavyset woman. Ruth is tiny and was fair-haired. What’s being said about Frida and race? I searched reviews and finally found one that addresses the issue by referencing the author’s own explanation (in the Sydney Review of Books, here). This explanation satisfied me, though I’m still wondering about Frida’s size.
Finally, it was lovely to see a bit of romance between Ruth and her almost-love from the past, who’s even older than she is. A delicately handled rarity in literary fiction.
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