HOTEL OBSCURE by Lisette Brodey @LisetteBrodey

4.5 out of 5 stars

On Amazon UK
On Amazon.com
On Goodreads

How I discovered this book: I read about it in an interview with the author on another author's blog.

In a Nutshell: short stories, separate but with connections, all taking place in a rundown hotel.

I was pleased to find that the seventeen stories in this collection are all quite long, making this book novel-length - there's plenty to get your teeth into.  One element I loved was loose connections between them; if you have a shocking memory like mine, it's best to read them in order, and without too much of a break in between, so you don't start thinking, 'oh yes, she's talking about that chap in that other one, two stories before...which one was it?'  But it doesn't matter if you don't remember, because each works well on its own.

As with most collections, some of them I just quite liked, others I liked more, and a few I thought were outstanding.  There isn't one weak one, though; it's a fine book, all round.  Number three was the first one I really loved, and remained one of my favourites; 'I'm a Fucking Cliché' had a totally different voice from the first two, and featured a self-destructive writer.  I also liked the one that connected to it, 'I Miss Him (The Great Sabotage)'.  The more I read, the more I admired Ms Brodey's understanding of the human psyche; many contained such astute observations, perfect dialogue, immaculate characterisation and some delightful turns of phrase.

Others I liked a lot:

• 'Twenty-Seven', about a musician's appalling luck in life.
• 'Only Sixteen', which was one of the saddest.
• 'To Be Perfectly Frank'.
• 'Thursday, Wrapped in Sadness' - another heartbreaker.

Some are told mostly in dialogue, others in the inner narrative of the protagonist, either in first or third person; I preferred the latter, but even here there was an exception; 'Junk Truck', a most compelling tale in which the main character is stalked by a lonely, probably psychotic woman desperate for her friendship.  As with others, the tone reminded me, on occasion, of Dorothy Parker's short stories, which I have read over and over. 'Junk Truck' had its threads neatly sewn together in the final story, 'Ellmore J Badget Jnr's Very Unusual Day'. 

This isn't a book for those looking for something 'feel-good'; though not without humour and the occasional happy ending, the stories are sad, raw, tragic, enveloped in loneliness and desperation, sometimes of the character's own making.  But other times not; on occasion I felt so sorry for the person I was reading about that I wished I could climb the dingy staircase of Hotel Obscure and make everything okay for them.  Yes, I most certainly recommend :)

Finally, I love this, taken from another review on Amazon.com: 

'There is, though, an eighteenth story that is not immediately apparent. It belongs not to a person, but to the Hotel Obscure itself. We don’t know the beginning of the hotel. We don’t know the ending. We only know the middle. The beginning and the ending are for us to provide. The middle is provided by Ms Brodey.'