6/20/2023 0 Comments The glass hotel genre![]() Messages are written on glass in more ways than one, and no one stays in one place for long, especially not Vincent. The Glass Hotel is a study in reality versus fantasy, identity versus role, and permanence versus fantasy. It's not much of a spoiler to say that the book's plot is heavily inspired by the Bernie Madoff scandal, but it is much more than that. John Mandel has a Dickensian ability to invest each of her characters with such a fully developed personality that it is difficult to even choose "main characters," but the story revolves mostly around Vincent, a young woman whose mother disappears in the waters off the small British Columbian town of Caiette - an accident? Foul play? an intentional vanishing? - and leaves Vincent to find her own way in the world, constantly reinventing herself as the opportunity presents. ![]() The story is not so much a linear plot as a montage of life experiences by a cast of characters, studied backward and forward over the course of decades. ![]() The Glass Hotel is a very different sort of book, but with the same beautiful character work and lovely writing. After reading Station Eleven, I was glad to find another novel by St. ![]()
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