The Hotel by Daisy Johnson
Publisher – Jonathan Cape
Published – Out Now
Price – £14.99 paperback £7.99 Kindle eBook
A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations –yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore.
On entering The Hotel, different people react in different ways. To some it is familiar, to others a stranger. Many come out refreshed, longing to return. But a few are changed forever, haunted by their time there. And almost all those affected are women...
They are children and mothers, monsters, cult film-makers, thrill-seekers and workers on the night shift, all with their own tales of its strange power, of the horrors of Room 63, and of desperate but failed attempts to escape its seductive pull.
The joy of a holiday is the destination, exploring new places but also finding the right hotel. Hotels are in some ways strange places – a little superficial paradise that want you to have a peaceful stay, pay and underneath is a whole business of shifts and hidden areas. Hotels are transitory but if you’ve ever had a long stay in one after bad weather they can start to get a little claustrophobic. Imagine if that stay got even longer. In Daisy’s Johnson’s atmospheric collection of linked short tales The Hotel we cross the birth, life and afterlife of an infamous hotel that wants to get its teeth into those that come through the door.
This is an impressive set of linked tales which explore a theme of women being trapped in different ways linked to this strange supernatural presence in the hotel. Ina fascinating prologue Johnson quickly walks through the whole life of the hotel dangling in such a few well delivered lines and prompts to future tales like a dairy fairytale explaining the whole history of this place which the rest of the stories then start exploring in more detail. We go from the time before the hotel when a woman who knows the future knows her doom grows ever closer to a woman working on the site of the hotel when strange sights at night start to take over her lives. Later on its hen parties going wrong and found footage at the very end when a group of girls go ghosthunting.
What really works for me is the writing in miniature each short tale picks. We get characters explain their unhappy marriages, parental relationships and unrequited loves explained in just a few paragraphs to give us a sense of who they are then quickly the Hotel warps reality around people using their issues to its own ends. A woman can change into a man’s dead wife in shadow, a young child has a strange imaginary friend and Room 63 becomes a recurring ominous mention. They’re not all dark tales occasionally it’s about people making connections but not quite with the human. The hotel is a presence throughout but not always an evil one just a sense of something not human with its own thoughts and agendas but most of the time not great ones for those it selects to meet. As the stories continue we see certain names and incidents get connected and a broader sense why these people have always been chosen comes across but it’s all very subtly delivered rather than one big epic tale. The variety of tales really works but my one issue is there are few times I think the tale is aiming for an ambiguous ending as to what happens next but sometimes it just feels to end a little too suddenly. As these are based originally for radio I sense that is a timing issue but the collection is short enough an extra line or two may have helped a few more land perfectly but I am always more the journey than final destination so not too disappointing.
The Hotel is a dark delight. Great reading for a cold night when the house is very quiet and noises off may add some added atmosphere. You can savour these tales and the way they interplay with each other does make it for me a very satisfactory reading experience. Highly recommended!
