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Strange Hotel

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About this listen

A nameless woman enters a non-descript hotel room she's been in once before, many years ago. Though the room hasn't changed, she has, as have the dimensions of her life. As she goes on to occupy a series of hotel rooms around the world -- each of which reflects back some aspect of herself we begin to piece together the details of what transpires in these rooms, the rules of engagements she's put in place for herself and the men she sometimes meets, and the outlines of the absence she is trying to forget. Gradually, we come to understand what it is the narrator seeks to contain within the anonymous rooms she is drawn to, and how she might become free.

Told in a mesmerising voice that will beguile readers with its fierceness, vulnerability, honesty, and black humour, Strange Hotel immerses us in the currents of attraction, love, and grief. It is an immensely moving and ultimately revelatory exploration of one woman's attempts to negotiate her own memories and impulses, and what it might mean to return home.

©2020 Eimear McBride (P)2020 Faber Audio Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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A well written, well crafted, enjoyable book. The author brought an authenticity to the audiobook.

Great book

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Well she certainly seduced me, though I’d have to say it’s as much McBride’s hypnotic reading as the writing, which was an interesting combination of rich language combined with endless idiom. Those idioms started to grate at times and felt a little like a filling device, but they also serve to spotlight the finer language style McBride has used to portray the meandering anxiety of her character’s mind. I liked the character very much, and found much I could relate too, an uneasy yet addictive familiarity. I was about half way through and still a little undecided when McBride writes (and reads so well) an emotional clincher. It’s clever stuff and the whole listen at times felt like an indulgent guilty and very visual pleasure. The narrow style and short length of the book at the very least lends itself as a good palette cleanser between meatier reads but this is also a book I’ll be buying in print to read from the page as it was also beguiling. Try it, you might like it!

McBride weaves a magic spell

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