‘Glass Hotel’ a tragic tale for modern times
Directors Nicole Newham and James LeBrecht, a Hollywood sound designer and mixer who was once a Jened camper himself, use nearly 40-year-old footage, photos and present-day interviews to bring the unique setting to life. Not only was the camp something to look forward to every year, it helped the kids see, as one puts it, that their lives could be better. That idea was enough to propel some of the campers into a lifetime of activism that resulted in real and positive changes for people living with disabilities.
Judy Heumann, who was a Jened camper and then counselor, would become a major figure in the fight for disability rights as she and others made their way to Berkeley and learned the art of the protest. At one in New York, a handful of people — many in wheelchairs — essentially shut down the city by blocking one intersection. At another, the “504 sit-in,” more than 100 people in the disabled community occupied the local offices of the Department of Health, Welfare and Education for over 25 days, demanding that the Carter Administration guarantee their civil rights.
It’s a necessary and sobering look at a not too recent
Associated Press past when this country treated people with disabilities as barely human. The examples of their systemic exclusion from everyday society, from the seemingly small (like being turned away from ice cream shops) to the major (like being overlooked for jobs), are appalling. One soundbite has Richard Nixon bemoaning the cost of installing ramps and elevators around public transportation centers, wondering just how many people it would benefit anyway. Another sickening clip from a news broadcast featuring a very young Geraldo Rivera shows the horrifying conditions at Willowbrook, a staterun institution in New York for people with disabilities.
But what makes “Crip Camp,” which was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama, so wonderful are the people who attended that camp so many years ago and the joy you see in their faces recountclientele pay top dollar to stay in this remote and luxurious place, “a glassand-cedar palace at twilight” where, as general manager Raphael says to a prospective employee, “there’s a sense of being outside of time and space.”
An ephemeral quality permeates the novel. Many of the characters are haunted and most of the story is told in flashbacks to various times in Vincent’s life. As Mandel writes in the mind of Vincent: “It is possible to leave so much out of any given story.” The thrill of “The Glass Hotel” is that the pieces do eventually connect, from Vancouver to the glittering skyscrapers of New York.
Characters are introduced at different times and collide throughout the novel to complete a portrait of Vincent’s life and sketch their own stories too. There’s Jonathan, an investor whom Vincent seduces and lives with as a trophy wife back in New York; Vincent’s brother, Paul, whose journey takes him from heroin addiction to an artistic career kick-started by using his sister’s personal videos without permission; and Walter, who never leaves the hotel, working as the property’s caretaker ing those youthful days. It’s a worthy story even without the coda of the fight for their civil rights. You never know where empowerment might stem from: Sometimes, it’s a hippie camp in the Catskills.
“Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution,” a Netflix release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for “some language including sexual references.” Running time: 106 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four. for a decade after it closes.
The final chapter is haunting, taking readers full circle to those words spoken by Raphael about time and space ceasing to exist. It’s a sense readers will enjoy as well when they lose themselves in Mandel’s novel.