A (hotel) room of one’s own: 7 books to check in to
It’s almost as if the universe designed hotels for storytelling. Floor after floor, room after room, each one numbered like chapters. Each one populated with people who are going somewhere, wanting something, hoping for something, escaping something.
I miss hotels. But we can all check in via books — here are some places you might try.
‘The Shining’by Stephen King
Stephen King’s 1977 classic thriller “The Shining” changed the way we all look at hotels, especially ones far from civilization, and snowed in, and occupied by ghosts (or other such things), like the supposed real-life haunting of the Stanley Hotel in Colorado. Jack Torrance is a struggling author and, with his family, the winter caretaker of the isolated Overlook Hotel. Let’s just say, spoiler alert, he does not get over the writer’s block.
‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ by Amor Towles
Not that it’s how you necessarily gauge anything, but Amor Towles’s “A Gentleman in Moscow” has 22,079 ratings on Amazon. Also, O, The Oprah Magazine called it the ultimate quarantine read. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is sentenced — because of a poem he wrote! — to house arrest in the Metropole, a hotel across the street from the Kremlin. If you have not read this book, lucky you. Grab it right now. It is life-changing, inspirational and full of purpose. People make pilgrimages to the real hotel to immerse themselves in this captivating world. ‘Hotel’ by Arthur Hailey
There was a chunk of time, in my formative reading years, when I discovered the novels of Sidney Sheldon and Arthur
Hailey. Such terrific storytellers. It’s funny to think I was 16 when I read Hailey’s classic “Hotel.” I have no idea now what it’s about, I have to admit, except the owner of the New Orleans hotel has to raise money to save it, and there’s an heiress, a duchess and a thief. So incredibly glamorous, and so cool and knowledgeable about what happens in the back of the house. I read it nonstop.
‘Above the Bay of Angels’ by Rhys Bowen
Did you know the Excelsior Regina hotel was built just so Queen Victoria could visit the south of France? The brilliant Rhys Bowen’s “Above the Bay of Angels” reveals the magnificent place built in 1897 on a hillside in Nice. Victoria arrived on a private train with her whole court, including her cooks and a regiment of Highland Pipers, and then said, “I don’t want anybody to know I’m the queen!” If that made you smile, welcome to Bowen’s wit and impeccable storytelling. In Bowen’s book, the heroine is one of the queen’s chefs. ‘The Sun Down Motel’by Simone St.James
Double timeline, double protagonists. And as one of them says, upon seeing it: The Sun Down only looked empty. But it wasn’t.
And then: It was often so quiet that an observer would think nothing ever happened here. Simone
St. James’ new book is truly creepy, unsettling and gorgeously written. “What if everything I’ve seen, everything I think, is true?” says one character. I wondered about that long afterward. It’s best read with the lights on.
‘Psycho’by Robert Bloch
Lt me just tell you what’s on the back cover of Robert Bloch’s “Psycho.” “It was a dark and stormy night when Mary Crane glimpsed the unlit neon sign announcing the vacancy of the Bates Motel. Exhausted, lost, and at the end of her rope, she was eager for a hot shower and a bed for the night. Her room was musty but clean, and the plumbing worked. Norman Bates, the manager, seemed nice, if a little odd. ” Did you just burst out laughing? As I wrote this article, I realized I’d never actually read the 1959 book. So I started, and it is irresistible. Fascinating thing: it’s based on a true story.
‘The Hotel Neversink’by Adam O’Fallon-Price
“The Hotel Neversink” won the Edgar for Best Novel of 2020. For structure and construction alone, this book is a treasure, each puzzle piece building the story, just like the pieces of a hotel and its fascinating history. Like its predecessor, “Grand Hotel,” it’s full of the past and full of secrets, and Adam O’Fallon-Price knows how to wrap you in a gorgeous mystery.