The Guest List

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. Mystery is a genre that has existed for centuries, and there have been many classic mystery novels, both with and without famous detectives. What are some mysteries that you’ve read before?

Teaching Suggestion: Lucy Foley’s book doesn’t have a central detective figure, but it incorporates many elements of mystery. Encourage students to think about why this genre is so popular and how characterization can play a vital role in the plot as readers try to figure out who was the victim and who was the murderer. Ultimately, by having students think about mystery as a genre, you can begin to explore the theme of The Power of Deceptive Appearances.

• This Time.com article compiles a list of one hundred popular mystery and thriller books.
• This blog post from the British Psychological Society explores why people are so drawn to mysteries.

2. This novel takes place on a seemingly haunted isle called the Folly, and the setting is perfect for the mystery that takes place there. Why is setting important? What can it tell us that we might not otherwise notice? In what other novels that you’ve read—mystery or otherwise—has setting played a critical role?

Teaching Suggestion: The Folly’s supernatural and mythic past is critical to the theme of Haunting as Manifestations of the Past. Encourage students to think about novels where the setting embodies the conflict or plot of a novel, as in Wuthering Heights, with the contrast between the titular estate and Thrushcross Grange. Doing so can help them notice details like Darcey’s gravestone, the sea as an echo of his drowning, etc.

• This video from Oregon State University discusses setting and its relationship to themes within novels.
• This article from Peterborough Public Library profiles works in which setting is a critical element. The list includes many contemporary titles, which is useful when preparing to read The Guest List.

Personal Connection Prompt

This prompt can be used for in-class discussion, exploratory free-writing, or reflection homework before reading the text.

Do you enjoy mystery novels? Why or why not? What mysteries have tricked you, and which ones have you figured out before reaching the final page?

Teaching Suggestion: This novel is full of red herrings. Students should think about their experience reading mystery novels in order to notice the many details that Foley sprinkles throughout to give us hints about the characters and their pasts.

Differentiation Suggestion: Visual learners can make a collage of the mystery novels that they’ve read, using some mechanism of their own design to differentiate between the ones that they enjoyed and the ones that they didn’t.