Fiction Review: The Glass Hotel

I was a little late to the party (as usual) but once I read Station Eleven, I loved it (my review at the link). So, I was thrilled when Emily St. John Mandel released another novel after that, but as usual, it took me a while to read The Glass Hotel. My husband gave it to me for Christmas, and I devoured it last month. I was totally immersed in the story and never wanted it to end.

The novel centers around the life of a young woman named Vincent, who grows up on the remote tip of Vancouver Island, in the tiny, isolated town of Caiette. When Vincent is fourteen years old, her mother takes a canoe out into the water and disappears, which drastically alters the course of Vincent's life. Her father travels for work, so Vincent goes to live with an aunt in Vancouver. By the time she is seventeen, she is living on her own, in a tiny apartment with a friend. When an ultra-luxury glass-walled hotel is built in their little hometown of Caiette, the two young women get jobs there and move back home. Vincent is bartending at Hotel Caiette when she first meets Jonathan, the wealthy owner of the hotel. She ends up moving back East with him, where they act as a married couple (though they never actually marry). Vincent is bored at the big estate in Connecticut, where she swims every day in the infinity pool, so she spends many days in Manhattan, shopping and living a life of luxury. One day, disaster hits, and Jonathan's business--and life--fall apart, so Vincent just disappears again. She creates a new life for herself working as a cook on a huge container ship. The story comes full circle when a victim of Jonathan's fraud is hired to investigate the mysterious death of a woman from a container ship (not a spoiler, as the novel opens with Vincent's plunge from the ship).

This is one of those books where describing the plot does not do the novel justice. I was completely engrossed in this original story from its first pages, and I've spent some time trying to figure out exactly what makes Mandel's novels so incredibly compelling. One of the elements that shines through is her characters. They are fully-developed, eccentric, and oddly likable. There's something special about Vincent, who just sort of drifts through her life aimlessly, that you just can't put your finger on. And it's not just Vincent. Chapters are narrated by a wide variety of characters, including Vincent, Jonathan, Vincent's half-brother Paul, and other minor characters who come into the story, so the reader gets the full account from multiple perspectives. Another thing I love about Mandel's novels is the unexpected connections, the way that one character, in a far-off time and place, is somehow connected to another or how two characters may cross paths in unexpected ways. And, of course, her writing is exquisite and at the heart of what makes her novels so special. I loved everything about this beautiful novel, and I never wanted it to end.

Emily St. John Mandel's latest novel, Sea of Tranquility, was just released this month, and I can't wait to read it! I won't wait years this time. A friend told me it includes mentions of some of the characters from The Glass Hotel - more unexpected connections! 

301 pages, Vintage

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This book fits in the following 2022 Reading Challenges:

Mount TBR Challenge

Travel the World in Books - Canada (Vancouver) 

Literary Escapes Challenge - Connecticut

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Listen to a sample of the audiobook here, from the start of the novel and one of Paul's chapters, and/or download it from Audible. It sounds like a great audio!

 

You can buy the book through Bookshop.org, where your purchase will support the indie bookstore of your choice (or all indie bookstores)--the convenience of shopping online while still buying local!

 
   

 

Or you can order The Glass Hotel from Book Depository, with free shipping worldwide.