Liz asked Chris Pavone:

My book club read The Expats as our August 2014 selection. About half-way through the novel there is a scene where the music “Hotel California" is playing in the background, with its ominous lyrics “you can never leave.” We recalled this scene at the end of the book, wondering if any of the characters could successfully “leave”. While the question is left intriguingly open, any thoughts you'd be willing to share?

Chris Pavone Ha! I’m glad you seized on that soft-rock line, and its implications. Although I was never much of an Eagles fan, I do think that “You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave” is one of the all-time creepiest ideas in pop music, and this song gave me actual nightmares as a child. (As did Leon Redbone’s performances on Saturday Night Live, perhaps less explicably.) I included this line in The Expats because, as you probably suspect, the answer is no: none of the characters can ever leave, not really. They can’t escape their pasts. And if you read The Accident, you'll discover the further misadventures of one of them, having a hard time leaving.

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