Description
Book SynopsisFrom the author of Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel, The Glass Hotel is the story of the lives caught up in two very different tragedies: a woman disappearing from a container ship, and a massive Ponzi scheme imploding in New York.
'Terrific' – Sunday Times
'Elegant, haunting' – The Times
'A damn fine novel . . . evocative and immersive' – George R. R. Martin
Vincent is the beautiful bartender at the exclusive Hotel Caiette. When New York financier Jonathan Alkaitis walks into the hotel and hands her his card, it is the beginning of their life together.
That same night, a hooded figure scrawls a note on the windowed wall of the hotel: ‘Why don’t you swallow broken glass.’ Leon Prevant, a shipping executive, sees the note from the hotel bar and is shaken to his core.
When Alkaitis's investment fund is revealed to be a Ponzi scheme, Leon loses his retirement savings in the fallout, but Vincent seemingly walks away unscathed. Until, a decade later, she disappears from the deck of one of Leon's ships . . .
Trade ReviewNo one can create
beautiful, enmeshed, startlingly clever worlds the way Mandel does -- Daisy Johnson, author of
Everything UnderElegant, haunting . . . a
unique rumination on guilt, grief and regret * The Times *
Elegant . . .
beguiling . . . the joys of
The Glass Hotel are participatory: piecing together the connections . . .
a treasure map ripped to pieces * Guardian *
Beautifully written and compelling, it will find its way
straight to your heart. -- Red
A
perfect post-lockdown read . . . Mandel is a
terrific storyteller * Sunday Times *
A
damn fine novel . . . she keeps me turning pages . . .
haunting and evocative and immersive . . . I guess you can say
I am a big Emily St. John Mandel fanboy. I look forward to whatever she writes next. -- George R R Martin
A
fascinating and
affecting read --
StylistA beguiling tale about skewed morals, reckless lives and necessary means of escape. --
The EconomistI've waited five long years for this - and it was absolutely worth it.
In this stunning and meandering story full of beautiful prose ... Set in Vancouver Island's dazzling surroundings, this is an extraordinary read.
--
Prima, Book of the Month
The
bestselling author of Station Eleven returns with this tale about the relationship between a New York financier, his waiter lover,
a threatening note and a mysterious disappearance --
Times, Best books of 2020
Deeply imagined, philosophically profound . . .
The Glass Hotel moves forward propulsively, its characters continually on the run . . .
Richly satisfying . . .
as immersive a reading experience as its predecessor [
Station Eleven] . . .
Revolutionary * The Atlantic *
The
perfect novel for your survival bunker . . . Mandel is
a consummate, almost profligate world builder. One
superbly developed setting gives way to the next, as her attention winds from character to character . . . That Mandel manages to cover so much, so deeply is the
abiding mystery of this book * Washington Post *
The Glass Hotel is
as tightly constructed as a detective fiction, with its mysteries, apparently discrete events leading to revelations, dire consequences . . .
a superb performance * Sydney Morning Herald *
Lyrical, hypnotic images . . . suspend us in a kind of hallucinatory present where every detail is sharply defined yet queasily unreliable. -- Anna Mundow,
Wall Street JournalLike all Mandel’s novels,
The Glass Hotel is flawlessly constructed...
The Glass Hotel declares the world to be as bleak as it is beautiful, just like this novel. -- Rebecca Steinitz,
The Boston GlobeA
mysterious and delicate book . . .
The Glass Hotel beautifully depicts the many lives impacted by the collapse of an ambitious Ponzi scheme * Elle Magazine (USA) *
Another tale of wanderers whose fates are interconnected . . .
nail-biting tension . . . Mandel weaves an intricate spider web of a story . . .
A gorgeously rendered tragedy. * Booklist, starred *
Long-anticipated . . . At its heart, this is a ghost story in which every boundary is blurred, from the moral to the physical . . . In luminous prose, Mandel shows how easy it is to become caught in a web of unintended consequences and how disastrous it can be when such fragile bonds shatter under pressure.
A strange, subtle, and haunting novel. * Kirkus Reviews, starred *
Mandel’s wonderful novel (after
Station Eleven) follows a brother and sister as they navigate heartache, loneliness, wealth, corruption, drugs, ghosts, and guilt . . .
This ingenious, enthralling novel probes the tenuous yet unbreakable bonds between people and the lasting effects of momentary carelessness --
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
