Hey, I'm Glenn Weldon, and this is NPR's Book of the Day. I went to college in the Hamptons,

way back in the 80s. It sounds a lot more glamorous than it was, because I was a starving student.

I didn't hobnob with the rich and powerful, but I did scrub barnacles from the hulls of their boats and caterwitter,

their cocktail parties. There is a world beneath the world of the Hamptons populated by caterwitters and boat scrubbers and

landscapers, cooks, caddies, drivers, and beach club attendants.

It is a world that is completely invisible to the residents, at least until they need something.

They ignore you completely, but the minute you pick up a tray of champagne flutes or hot hors d'oeuvres,

that's when you get seen. Alex, the main character of Emma Klein's new novel, The Guest, is an outsider

in the Hamptons who longs to be seen. She is a sex worker trying to find a way inside the hermetically

sealed community of wealth and privilege. She's a lot smarter than I ever was and way better at reading a room.

She's also something I never had the guts to be, an agent of chaos.

Klein talked with Mary Louise Kelly on all things considered.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors.

On our new show, Sources and Methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,

helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app,

or wherever you get your podcasts.

The new novel, The Guest, unfolds against a backdrop of wealth.

It is high summer. We're in the Hamptons on Long Island. Everyone is rich. Everyone is attractive. The champagne is iced. The beaches and the pools are perfect, sparkling, serene.

And the main character, Alex, moves among them like a walking, one-woman wrecking ball.

She is a 22-year-old sex worker trying to leave that life behind.

The guest is Emma Klein's second novel, following her barnstormer hit of a first novel,

...