The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

The ghosts of a guilty conscious vie with authentic apparitions

Addiction, desire, secrets, and betrayal all play a part in The Glass Hotel, a complex and skillfully-written novel told from multiple points of view by a somewhat omniscient narrator. At the center of the tale is a major white-collar financial crime that takes a toll on all of the characters in different ways. As the story jumps between a remote spot on an island off the western seaboard of Canada and New York City, among many other settings, and follows different characters for different lengths of time, the reader does her best to hold on to the threads, which do come together in the end. Vincent, arguably the main character, had a story that stood out from the rest, and I wish I could have spent more time with her.

The subject matter of this novel is vastly different from St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, but the intricate and complicated style that takes distance points you can't fathom will come together and actually bringing them together in a meaningful way is here, the same as it was in her previous novel.

Ghosts and/or ghostliness, alternate realities and mental perceptions, and magical realism are recurring themes in this book, and add a dreamlike, ethereal quality to the story. I admire the masterful writing, although the story left me melancholy.

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