The Glass Hotel

By Emily St. John Mandel, 2020, HarperCollins, 320 pages

Reviewed by Sue Fountain, Aug. 30, 2020

I just finished reading “The Glass Hotel” by Emily St. John Mandel, which is the second book of hers I have read this month!

The first one, “Station Eleven,” was suggested by Julie Bookman. Julie wrote that she didn't make it through this second one.

Both stories have intertwined narratives and switch back-and-forth in time. I was completely caught up in the various stories and how they all overlapped and came together in the end.

A beautiful young woman named Vincent (named after Edna St. Vincent Millay) leads one of the narrative streams. Her step-brother Paul drifts in and out of her life. Vincent marries a very wealthy man who we later find out is running a Ponzi scheme ala Bernie Madoff.

As quickly as she moves into his life and his opulent lifestyle, she steps out of it to become a cook on a huge freighter. Mysterious clues appear throughout the book and the reader learns to be patient because the clues will be explained.

This style of using interconnected narratives was used in “Station Eleven,” which I also really enjoyed. I look forward to reading other books by this author.