The Little Hotel by Christina Stead
Requirements: ePUB Reader, 671 KB
Overview: “If you knew what happens in the hotel every day!” Madame Bonnard, the eccentric and inquisitive owner of the Hotel Swiss-Touring—a third-rate Swiss hotel—knows her guests’ many secrets, things they wouldn’t tell their friends, family, or lawyers. They come from all over Europe in the wake of World War II, seeking refuge from their countries or their own bruised hearts. Madame Bonnard reigns over “Mayor of B” from Belgium, two guests posing as cousins, a doctor’s wife who is certain her husband is trying to slowly poison her, and Clara, a power-hungry staff member. Based on Stead’s experiences living in European hotels, The Little Hotel is a captivating portrait of what happens when strangers—and their desires, lies, and fears—live in close quarters.
The book starts off a bit slow but the last half is wickedly funny. Always perceptive, Christina Stead brings the bizarre life of a little hotel to the reader in a way that is impossible not to recognize if you have ever been there. The restaurant scene in Chapter 5 is a tour de force only matched by the incredible chapter in The House of All Nations where the two couples have dinner.
Christina Stead (1902–1983) was an Australian writer regarded as one of the twentieth century’s master novelists. Stead spent most of her writing life in Europe and the United States, and her varied residences acted as the settings for a number of her novels. She is best known for The Man Who Loved Children (1940), which was praised by author Jonathan Franzen as a “crazy, gorgeous family novel” and “one of the great literary achievements of the twentieth century.” Stead died in her native Australia in 1983.
Genre: General Fiction/Classics
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