Knopf Publishing Group
The Glass Hotel
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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events--the exposure of a massive criminal enterprise and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
"The perfect novel ... Freshly mysterious." --The Washington Post
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don't you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan's wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
Look for Emily St. John Mandel's bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility!
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Book Details
ISBN:
9780525521143
EAN:
9780525521143
Binding:
Hardcover
Pages:
320
Authors:
Emily St John Mandel
Publisher:
Knopf Publishing Group
Published Date: 2020-24-03
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this story takes some twists and turns and a large section of the novel becomes about something else entirely. Wanted to give a 2.5 star but the writing is very good, just wish I cared about the story more.
All the stories, all the people, and their lives, so beautifully intertwined. I feel very sad that there's no more left to read.
I like Emily St. John Mandel’s writing style. But it’s certainly the polar opposite of what some call “a beach read”. That because this book is not a quick, casual read. As a reader, you have to pay attention for a couple reasons. First, because the author can stop midway through a sentence, transition into a philosophical half-page segue, and then continue on with the remainder of the original sentence. Second, because several characters are initially introduced -- but exactly who they are and how they are connected to each other is only eventually revealed. Third, odd actions near the start of the story may be left unexplained until much farther into the story.So basically, the story initially feels like random people are doing random actions until their lives are eventually stitched together. The story is not a straightforward journey from A to Z. About a third of the way through the story, I wasn’t even sure where the story was headed. The story is nonlinear and messy. But so is life. Also, there is no climatic ending to the story. It felt more like a series of mini-endings. Thinking back, I’m not sure any character got to have a happy ending – the story’s mood near the end was that of a low-grade sadness as the mini-endings unfolded.And yet, I liked this book (though not immediately, as I needed to at least have some idea of why things were happening) -- probably because it didn’t read like a run-of-the-mill mystery, thriller or drama.Bottom Line: I suspect Mandel is an author whose books you either like to read or don’t. I do. I’ve already read her “Sea of Tranquility”. Based on others’ reviews, I should read her “Station Eleven” next.
I began _The Glass Hotel_ without any expectation of where I was bound and found myself on a wonderful, melancholy journey.Ms Mandel has woven a most excellent tale. In my mind there is no greater praise than that.
I came to this book after reading Station Eleven. I'm more disappointed with this book than I expected. I found it pretty boring and not cohesive, but maybe that was the point. Oh well.
