Karl Rossman’s period of employment at the Hotel Occidental forms only one chapter of his life after he is deported from Germany to the United States, but it is at the hotel that he first confronts the harsh realities of the American dream. Dressler is a flâneur par excellence who seems to dream the skyscrapers of the future into existence.Īmerika by Franz Kafka (New Directions, $13). A fairy tale–like invocation of New York on the brink of massive change at the end of the 19th century. Martin Dressler by Steven Millhauser (Vintage, $14). Krull’s lack of identity makes him the perfect hotel dweller, as he assumes and casts off mask after mask. For Teresa, a beautiful girl not yet twenty, Mamarrosa is a place from which to escape. The total hotel novel, portraying every facet of hotel life from lowly lift boy to royal guest. 'Alentejo Blue' is the story of a village community in Portugal, told through the lives of men and women whose families have lived there for generations and some who are passing through. When the place comes, literally, to life, it seems terrifyingly natural that it should.Ĭonfessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man by Thomas Mann (Vintage, $17). A hotel is about as characterful as a building can get, and the Overlook Hotel is an exceptionally strong character. The Shining by Stephen King (Pocket, $15). Fired by a sense of social injustice and homelessness, Roth makes the hotel stand for everything that is wrong in a decaying post–World War I Europe. Roth’s brilliant short novel has been somewhat overlooked. Hotel Savoy by Joseph Roth (Overlook, $15).
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