What do you think?
Rate this book
A Small Hotel
A Small Hotel is a beautifully told story of love, loss, and redemption. Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, the novel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hays, who have decided to separate after twenty years of marriage.
The book begins on the day that Michael and Kelly are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due in court, but instead drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter—the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha. Butler masterfully weaves scenes of the present with memories from both the viewpoint of Michael and Kelly—scenes that span some twenty years, taking the reader back to critical moments in the couple’s relationship and showing two people deeply in love but also struggling with their own insecurities and inabilities to express this love.
An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page-turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer”
The book begins on the day that Michael and Kelly are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due in court, but instead drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter—the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha. Butler masterfully weaves scenes of the present with memories from both the viewpoint of Michael and Kelly—scenes that span some twenty years, taking the reader back to critical moments in the couple’s relationship and showing two people deeply in love but also struggling with their own insecurities and inabilities to express this love.
An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page-turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer”
241 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
82 people are currently reading
2020 people want to read
About the author
Robert Olen Butler
87 books455 followers“I’ll never stop believing it: Robert Olen Butler is the best living American writer, period.”
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
– Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Robert Olen Butler has published sixteen novels—The Alleys of Eden, Sun Dogs, Countrymen of Bones, On Distant Ground, Wabash, The Deuce, They Whisper, The Deep Green Sea, Mr. Spaceman, Fair Warning, Hell, A Small Hotel, The Hot Country, The Star of Istanbul, The Empire of Night, Perfume River—and six volumes of short fiction—Tabloid Dreams, Had a Good Time, Severance, Intercourse, Weegee Stories, and A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, which won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Butler has published a volume of his lectures on the creative process, From Where You Dream, edited with an introduction by Janet Burroway.
In 2013 he became the seventeenth recipient of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. He also won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. He has twice won a National Magazine Award in Fiction and has received two Pushcart Prizes. He has also received both a Guggenheim Fellowship in fiction and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. His stories have appeared widely in such publications as The New Yorker, Esquire, Harper’s, The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, Zoetrope, The Paris Review, Granta, The Hudson Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, Ploughshares, and The Sewanee Review. They have been chosen for inclusion in four annual editions of The Best American Short Stories, eight annual editions of New Stories from the South, several other major annual anthologies, and numerous college literature textbooks from such publishers as Simon & Schuster, Norton, Viking, Little Brown & Co., Houghton Mifflin, Oxford University Press, Prentice Hall, and Bedford/St.Martin and most recently in The New Granta Book of the American Short Story, edited by Richard Ford.
His works have been translated into twenty-one languages, including Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, Polish, Japanese, Serbian, Farsi, Czech, Estonian, Greek, and most recently Chinese. He was also a charter recipient of the Tu Do Chinh Kien Award given by the Vietnam Veterans of America for “outstanding contributions to American culture by a Vietnam veteran.” Over the past two decades he has lectured in universities, appeared at conferences, and met with writers groups in 17 countries as a literary envoy for the U. S. State Department.
He is a Francis Eppes Distinguished Professor holding the Michael Shaara Chair in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Under the auspices of the FSU website, in the fall of 2001, he did something no other writer has ever done, before or since: he revealed his writing process in full, in real time, in a webcast that observed him in seventeen two-hour sessions write a literary short story from its first inspiration to its final polished form. He also gave a running commentary on his artistic choices and spent a half-hour in each episode answering the emailed questions of his live viewers. The whole series, under the title “Inside Creative Writing” is a very popular on YouTube, with its first two-hour episode passing 125,000 in the spring of 2016.
For more than a decade he was hired to write feature-length screenplays for New Regency, Twentieth Century Fox, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney, Universal Pictures, Baldwin Entertainment Group (for Robert Redford), and two teleplays for HBO. Typical of Hollywood, none of these movies ever made it to the screen.
Reflecting his early training as an actor, he has also recorded the audio books for four of his works—A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Hell, A Small Hotel and Perfume River. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate degree from the State University of New York system. He lives in Florida, with his wife, the poet Kelly Lee Butler.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 321 reviews
March 17, 2017
I have previously read "Perfume River" by Robert Olen Butler and loved that one. "A Small Hotel" was good as well, but not on the same level, in my opinion.
There is no doubt that this novel is written in a fascinating way. It's basically one long chapter about Michael's and Kelly's thoughts on their mariage which has failed after 20 years. They are now separated and thinking back on their happy days as a couple. Kelly has even returned to room 303 at a hotel where they had their first date.
However, we only get to meet this separated couple just when they are about to finalize their divorce, and because of that I felt a disconnect to them because I didn't know where they were coming from. Who were they? Why was I supposed to feel personally involved with their separation? Of course we get to know them as the story moves on, but to me that wasn't enough to care deeply for them.
Still, this book definitely presents us with an interesting writing style and way of telling a love story, and for that I rate it three stars.
There is no doubt that this novel is written in a fascinating way. It's basically one long chapter about Michael's and Kelly's thoughts on their mariage which has failed after 20 years. They are now separated and thinking back on their happy days as a couple. Kelly has even returned to room 303 at a hotel where they had their first date.
However, we only get to meet this separated couple just when they are about to finalize their divorce, and because of that I felt a disconnect to them because I didn't know where they were coming from. Who were they? Why was I supposed to feel personally involved with their separation? Of course we get to know them as the story moves on, but to me that wasn't enough to care deeply for them.
Still, this book definitely presents us with an interesting writing style and way of telling a love story, and for that I rate it three stars.
July 18, 2011
Confused by Love
In one evening a couple relives their entire life together. As young people they met in Louisiana at Mardi Gras and immediately felt an affinity. Over the next 25 years life happens and cracks begin to open. Work, parenting and their scars from childhood intervene. Michael’s harsh, unexpressive father taught him not to share what’s in his heart. It’s not manly. Kelly can’t help wondering why her mentally ill father is so distant. Then they both meet other people who seduce them away from one another.
Butler writes a touching story. I read it in two big gulps with tissues nearby. He deftly and clearly winds the present with the past with hardly any demarcation. I felt like I had a front row seat at the theatre. I wanted to grab Michael and explain what Kelly most needs and then grab Kelly and tell her what Michael’s silence means. The most amazing thing was how well they did manage to support and love one another. Ironically they got in their own way. There is a sense of menace when Kelly is accosted by three men at that long ago Mardi Gras and as she wanders the dark quarter in the present but the real darkness, and light, was in their own hearts.
In one evening a couple relives their entire life together. As young people they met in Louisiana at Mardi Gras and immediately felt an affinity. Over the next 25 years life happens and cracks begin to open. Work, parenting and their scars from childhood intervene. Michael’s harsh, unexpressive father taught him not to share what’s in his heart. It’s not manly. Kelly can’t help wondering why her mentally ill father is so distant. Then they both meet other people who seduce them away from one another.
Butler writes a touching story. I read it in two big gulps with tissues nearby. He deftly and clearly winds the present with the past with hardly any demarcation. I felt like I had a front row seat at the theatre. I wanted to grab Michael and explain what Kelly most needs and then grab Kelly and tell her what Michael’s silence means. The most amazing thing was how well they did manage to support and love one another. Ironically they got in their own way. There is a sense of menace when Kelly is accosted by three men at that long ago Mardi Gras and as she wanders the dark quarter in the present but the real darkness, and light, was in their own hearts.
August 17, 2011
How in heaven's name can a creative writing teacher at Florida State University, who has won a Pulitzer Prize, National Magazine Awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, an NEA grant and the Richard and Hinda Roenthal Award, possibly write such a terrible book? Run on sentences, fragmented paragraphs and formless, shapeless writing abounds. If you're all about reading a book where almost every other sentence begins with 'and' or 'but,' this book is for you. This is a dark and depressing little book written by a male author who believes he can accurately reflect the inner life of a married woman. I knew how it would end on the first page. I don't recommend this book ... you'd be better off taking a nap!
August 25, 2011
This is why I try to avoid reading other reviews of books before I write my own thoughts. According to a major newspaper's book blog, Butler's latest novel comes uncomfortably close to mirroring his own 1995 divorce, made infamous after an extremely personal email he wrote went astray. An email about why his marriage failed, citing specifics about his ex-wife's past.
I'll be honest, knowing Butler was at least inadvertently responsible for this happening pre-disposes me to feel a little disgusted, but I know I'm projecting my own prejudices and that's irresponsible. A writer's personal life should not have anything to do with any assessment of his art. It also hasn't escaped me that this newspaper's (I don't want to give them any more curious readers) intention in mentioning Butler's divorce fiasco in the context of this novel may be ethically suspect, stepping over the line comparing real life with fiction, judging a writer's art by way of one particular incident. That makes me more disgusted. I believe that's called opportunism.
Putting that aside, I very much enjoyed the novel. I found it well-framed, using a couple's present-day divorce to bracket remembered episodes throughout their 24-year marriage, flashing back and forward, starting the day Kelly Hays doesn't show up at the courthouse to sign final divorce papers. Instead, she flees to the New Orleans hotel where she and husband Michael first got to know each other, spent their honeymoon, and returned to often throughout their marriage.
On the same day, Michael takes his 29-year old girlfriend to an antebellum costume party at a plantation home an hour away. The two haven't consummated their relationship but intend to the same evening Kelly's in New Orleans drinking scotch and contemplating a drastic step.
We're also given a bit of back story: both Michael and Kelly grew up with distant fathers they loved intensely, leading Michael to become withdrawn and Kelly to crave what she never had as a child. This proves to be key in the eventual demise of their marriage, as well as a factor in relation to their own 20-year old daughter.
A plot like this could well have turned out to be schmaltzy and melodramatic, but it wasn't anything like that. I was annoyed by the overuse of the expression "waiting a beat" - "a beat" already becoming a convention - but it was a book I could hardly stand to put down and couldn't wait to pick back up again.
Reading back through the plot description I'm baffled as to how Butler managed to avoid turning this into a Hallmark Special script. Maybe it's because the issues he raises - the importance of communication in a marriage, and how the lack of it can ultimately bring about its downfall - are so true. Or perhaps the seriousness with which he approached it and the language he used, avoiding any heaving breasts or throbbing organs. Had it been otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered addressing the novel.
Lacking the time to go back and thoroughly analyze his prose style, I can only say he pulled it off with aplomb. It's a great read, rendering any resemblance this book may have to a former real-life relationship moot. Because the last time I checked an author was allowed to use life experience, so long as there's nothing libelous, and divorce isn't really a unique situation you wouldn't expect to find in a book. If it were otherwise there would have been a lot of books left unwritten.
Did I miss something? If I did I'm mighty angry I didn't get the memo.
I'll be honest, knowing Butler was at least inadvertently responsible for this happening pre-disposes me to feel a little disgusted, but I know I'm projecting my own prejudices and that's irresponsible. A writer's personal life should not have anything to do with any assessment of his art. It also hasn't escaped me that this newspaper's (I don't want to give them any more curious readers) intention in mentioning Butler's divorce fiasco in the context of this novel may be ethically suspect, stepping over the line comparing real life with fiction, judging a writer's art by way of one particular incident. That makes me more disgusted. I believe that's called opportunism.
Putting that aside, I very much enjoyed the novel. I found it well-framed, using a couple's present-day divorce to bracket remembered episodes throughout their 24-year marriage, flashing back and forward, starting the day Kelly Hays doesn't show up at the courthouse to sign final divorce papers. Instead, she flees to the New Orleans hotel where she and husband Michael first got to know each other, spent their honeymoon, and returned to often throughout their marriage.
On the same day, Michael takes his 29-year old girlfriend to an antebellum costume party at a plantation home an hour away. The two haven't consummated their relationship but intend to the same evening Kelly's in New Orleans drinking scotch and contemplating a drastic step.
We're also given a bit of back story: both Michael and Kelly grew up with distant fathers they loved intensely, leading Michael to become withdrawn and Kelly to crave what she never had as a child. This proves to be key in the eventual demise of their marriage, as well as a factor in relation to their own 20-year old daughter.
A plot like this could well have turned out to be schmaltzy and melodramatic, but it wasn't anything like that. I was annoyed by the overuse of the expression "waiting a beat" - "a beat" already becoming a convention - but it was a book I could hardly stand to put down and couldn't wait to pick back up again.
Reading back through the plot description I'm baffled as to how Butler managed to avoid turning this into a Hallmark Special script. Maybe it's because the issues he raises - the importance of communication in a marriage, and how the lack of it can ultimately bring about its downfall - are so true. Or perhaps the seriousness with which he approached it and the language he used, avoiding any heaving breasts or throbbing organs. Had it been otherwise I wouldn't have even bothered addressing the novel.
Lacking the time to go back and thoroughly analyze his prose style, I can only say he pulled it off with aplomb. It's a great read, rendering any resemblance this book may have to a former real-life relationship moot. Because the last time I checked an author was allowed to use life experience, so long as there's nothing libelous, and divorce isn't really a unique situation you wouldn't expect to find in a book. If it were otherwise there would have been a lot of books left unwritten.
Did I miss something? If I did I'm mighty angry I didn't get the memo.
September 6, 2011
Though many describe this book as the story of the dissolution of a marriage, I saw it as a masterful portrayal of people caught in their own limitations, which are also the limitations of their parents and will be the limitations of their children if they don't CUT IT OUT!!! Some are critical of the author's choice of writing about this topic (marital reconfiguring) on the heels of his own, fairly recent (2007) divorce. I am of the "write-about-what-you-know" school of thought. Especially if you are able, as Butler is, of breathing new life into the scene.
Some criticisms:
I wish that Kelly (the wife) had been given a career. She was just as intelligent as her husband. Why was Michael (husband) the overworked professional while Kelly busied herself with fund-raisers?
Choice of names:
Kelly and Laurie. It was hard for me to distinguish between the two. The names have similar tones and I kept getting them mixed up.
I vote for less use of the word "darling".
Some criticisms:
I wish that Kelly (the wife) had been given a career. She was just as intelligent as her husband. Why was Michael (husband) the overworked professional while Kelly busied herself with fund-raisers?
Choice of names:
Kelly and Laurie. It was hard for me to distinguish between the two. The names have similar tones and I kept getting them mixed up.
I vote for less use of the word "darling".
June 24, 2012
OMG what a bunch of drama queens. Everybody here takes him/herself w a y too seriously. Is anybody on earth really this humorless? A story--told stupidly in the present tense, self consciously drifting from a boring, dreary present to a misunderstood past--about a divorcing couple who deserve each shallow, self absorbed other.
November 1, 2011
How long does it take to say that stereotypical belief that men don't communicate and women will do anything to keep them. Apparently 241 pages.
November 12, 2012
Ugghhh!
February 6, 2013
I found this book unbearable. It's written in a way I might have been tempted to write a short story in the ninth grade, thinking it romantic to use pronouns almost exclusively. Of course I wouldn't have used the word "tits" quite so much, or at all really. Give it a read if you like to roll your eyes. Bonus points if you suffer through the audiobook: it really got on my nerves that this was read by the author. Thank God it's over.
September 4, 2013
Familiar story told in a different way. It's actually hard to believe that someone can go through 20 years of marriage without once saying "I love you", but what do I know. I liked the book overall. Very quick read once you get into it.
May 21, 2017
Superior writing, Great local details. But...
In Short: Robert O. Butler can be depended upon to write compelling well crafted prose. His command of the geography of his story is complete. To believe this particular story you have to believe that people will not talk to each other.
A married couple, who love each other are in the last stages of divorce. The reason for the divorce is that he does not know when she needs him to say what. She will not tell him when she needs him to say what. If she has to ask, it does not count. He was raised to not say these kinds of things. Each makes their case to the reader as the point of view switches between them.
While the back story given for each person is sufficient to make their respective weaknesses believable, the reader has to wonder: Why is it so hard to just speak up? Given that she is the person most deeply suffering, it is in her power to end her suffering by voicing her needs.
Indeed he has a new girl friend who is taken by his lack of romantic efusions. This opens a possible discussion that what makes this man attractive is his reticence, and that it is the women who want what they want until they want something else.
This is one of those stories where everyone has money, has safety has security has ready to hand material and personal support. There is just this one problem. It will drive her to suicide. He will spend most of the book oblivious. It is just possible that this couple simply has it too good. If, perhaps they were struggling to pay bills, or unfairly forced out of their community, they may have found that having to solve critical problems could have given them the trust to talk about this interior issue, or the perspective to ignore it.
Given my frustration with this book, I could rate it three stars. What I cannot ignore is that Butler writes well. Systematically he explains why these people are the way they are. Their case is made by unfolding the story and building on the dramatic tensions and the interior life of these two people. No one is evil; each just is who they are.
As always, Butler knows New Orleans, the French Quarter and the region. If a character walks off Royal Street they do not arrive at the Lakefront. Somehow he can use light and sounds to invoke the geography of a place with the same facility as they alert you to the mood of the speaker.
In Short: Robert O. Butler can be depended upon to write compelling well crafted prose. His command of the geography of his story is complete. To believe this particular story you have to believe that people will not talk to each other.
A married couple, who love each other are in the last stages of divorce. The reason for the divorce is that he does not know when she needs him to say what. She will not tell him when she needs him to say what. If she has to ask, it does not count. He was raised to not say these kinds of things. Each makes their case to the reader as the point of view switches between them.
While the back story given for each person is sufficient to make their respective weaknesses believable, the reader has to wonder: Why is it so hard to just speak up? Given that she is the person most deeply suffering, it is in her power to end her suffering by voicing her needs.
Indeed he has a new girl friend who is taken by his lack of romantic efusions. This opens a possible discussion that what makes this man attractive is his reticence, and that it is the women who want what they want until they want something else.
This is one of those stories where everyone has money, has safety has security has ready to hand material and personal support. There is just this one problem. It will drive her to suicide. He will spend most of the book oblivious. It is just possible that this couple simply has it too good. If, perhaps they were struggling to pay bills, or unfairly forced out of their community, they may have found that having to solve critical problems could have given them the trust to talk about this interior issue, or the perspective to ignore it.
Given my frustration with this book, I could rate it three stars. What I cannot ignore is that Butler writes well. Systematically he explains why these people are the way they are. Their case is made by unfolding the story and building on the dramatic tensions and the interior life of these two people. No one is evil; each just is who they are.
As always, Butler knows New Orleans, the French Quarter and the region. If a character walks off Royal Street they do not arrive at the Lakefront. Somehow he can use light and sounds to invoke the geography of a place with the same facility as they alert you to the mood of the speaker.
Read
November 4, 2011See it in the catalog here: http://haines.evergreencatalog.com/op...
November 2011
This is a quiet, thoughtful novel set in present-day New Orleans. Robert Olen Butler, an eloquent writer, pulls off a difficult story-line in a way that only a seasoned writer like himself could. Michael and Kelly Hays are divorcing, and the novel works its way back in time to understand how two human beings came to be married and what, over time, made them fall apart. I loved the way Butler doesn't pick sides: he loves both of his characters and he doesn't judge them. Instead, he makes them human, and he marvels in quiet amazement at the way one moment can change everything, how a simple matter of being thirsty and so separating from your group to get a drink of water may be the one thing that enables you to meet the person you'll marry. I also really appreciated how Kelly and Michael both remember the same moments differently; Butler's multiple portrayals of a single event felt true to the fluidity of memory.
This is a novel that ruminates on how difficult communication between two human beings can be, reminding me of a Willa Cather quote I'm fond of: "The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own." It's a dark forest, so illuminate it as much as you can. And for goodness' sake, if you love somebody: tell that person. Words cannot capture everything, no, but the lack of words is worse. A lack of words can leave too much room for misunderstanding and miscommunication and can even threaten to drive a stake through a relationship.
-Janine A.
November 2011
This is a quiet, thoughtful novel set in present-day New Orleans. Robert Olen Butler, an eloquent writer, pulls off a difficult story-line in a way that only a seasoned writer like himself could. Michael and Kelly Hays are divorcing, and the novel works its way back in time to understand how two human beings came to be married and what, over time, made them fall apart. I loved the way Butler doesn't pick sides: he loves both of his characters and he doesn't judge them. Instead, he makes them human, and he marvels in quiet amazement at the way one moment can change everything, how a simple matter of being thirsty and so separating from your group to get a drink of water may be the one thing that enables you to meet the person you'll marry. I also really appreciated how Kelly and Michael both remember the same moments differently; Butler's multiple portrayals of a single event felt true to the fluidity of memory.
This is a novel that ruminates on how difficult communication between two human beings can be, reminding me of a Willa Cather quote I'm fond of: "The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own." It's a dark forest, so illuminate it as much as you can. And for goodness' sake, if you love somebody: tell that person. Words cannot capture everything, no, but the lack of words is worse. A lack of words can leave too much room for misunderstanding and miscommunication and can even threaten to drive a stake through a relationship.
-Janine A.
May 25, 2011
Being speechless after reading a book certainly makes it hard to write a coherent review but I’m going to do my best. While this book deals with a married couple, I think everyone who has come to the ending of a failed relationship can relate to this story: the melancholy, the outsider interference, the fog that envelopes you and keeps you physically moving forward in the world while remaining emotional adrift.
When first starting the book, I was worried about the “flashbacks” that were mentioned in the summary…I shouldn’t have been. Less flashback, these were more memories brought forth by each character as they began to absorb what had happened in their lives and marriage– both the good and the bad. They flowed just as they would to each of us – gritty, chaotic, realistic without apology.
The story itself is perhaps one as old as time but never have I read it done with such clarity and understanding. The characters are real, flawed, and even as an outsider it becomes difficult not to try and judge them for their rights and wrongs but that is the key to this novel: put yourself in this couple’s predicament, put yourself back in any relationship you’ve struggled with and you will see not just the black and whites of mistakes but the varying shades of grey that exist between any two people trying to wrestle with their own issues while holding on to what they hope to have with each other.
Wonderfully drawn story, will definitely be a purchase for both myself and our library when it is released. (ARC Galley Proof)
When first starting the book, I was worried about the “flashbacks” that were mentioned in the summary…I shouldn’t have been. Less flashback, these were more memories brought forth by each character as they began to absorb what had happened in their lives and marriage– both the good and the bad. They flowed just as they would to each of us – gritty, chaotic, realistic without apology.
The story itself is perhaps one as old as time but never have I read it done with such clarity and understanding. The characters are real, flawed, and even as an outsider it becomes difficult not to try and judge them for their rights and wrongs but that is the key to this novel: put yourself in this couple’s predicament, put yourself back in any relationship you’ve struggled with and you will see not just the black and whites of mistakes but the varying shades of grey that exist between any two people trying to wrestle with their own issues while holding on to what they hope to have with each other.
Wonderfully drawn story, will definitely be a purchase for both myself and our library when it is released. (ARC Galley Proof)
September 21, 2011
I found a "Small Hotel" to be a very realistic and heartbreaking portrayal of a couple's life leading up to the dissolution of their marriage. The novel tells the story of their marriage through flashbacks that span the years and bring us back to the present time on the day their divorce is supposed to be final. Although the demise of a marriage is sad,I found Michael's inability to to say the words I love you to his wife or daughter to be the saddest reality of the situation. I sympathize with everyone in this story even though I disagree with Kelly's actions. It is a reminder that sometimes the things we don't say can cause just as much damage and be as hurtful as the things we do.
February 25, 2017
Not really my cup of tea. Trite characterizations , the needy female, the strong silent man, the younger slightly less needy but still needy lover all made me feel a little sad. This is pulitzer prize winning writing? Lord, I hope not.
August 11, 2012
I'm not sure why this book was so highly recommended. It was a complete bore. The author's writing style was a distraction (ex. And...and...and...and...etc.). The ending was all Hollywood. Meh.
September 27, 2019
I absolutely hated this book. One of my random downloads (WHY, LORD?) and I don't know what compelled me to do that. It's only 128 pages long. 128 effing pages!!!! I barely got thru the first five pages. Why, at my age, I feel I must finish what I start is a mystery. I'm not sure I learned my lesson sticking with this one to the final page. I even disciplined myself to ONLY read this while I was in the hospital for a lengthy stay. I thought that would give me the incentive to swiftly finish it. I'm curious when I began this book--all 128 pages of it--because I'm pretty sure it's been well over a month and I just finished it now. This is almost a stream of consciousness novel. I believe the first time I noted some actual action by a character was on page 68. This is a novel about a relationship--girl-boy, man-woman, love-hate, beginnings-endings. In 128 pages a relationship--theirs specifically but could be anyone's--is dissected from every angle. What brings two people together? What tears two people apart? Is it how you're raised? Is it communication? Is it distraction or attraction? It all became scary as hell. I have no idea who Robert Olen Butler is but early on, I realized that he is a masterful writer--and I felt that even more strongly as I went page by page by page to page 128. It seemed that every single word--Every. Single. Word.--was chosen with deliberation. No matter who was speaking, they couldn't have said anything else. In the end, this book broke my heart. (Good Lord, the irony of that just hit me. I am recovering from a heart attack.) Read it...but remember I warned you. Tell people that you love them, OK?
September 20, 2011
http://www.dallasnews.com/entertainme...
The author, known for his risk-taking, offers a quiet but well-executed story about a disintigrating marriage
FICTION
A Small Hotel
Robert Olen Butler
(Grove, $24)
Some of literature's greatest plots would have been ruined by modern technology. Take Romeo and Juliet — if those lovesick teenagers had been able to text each other, there would have been no mix-ups over who was dead and who wasn't. And what if Jane Eyre could have gone online to learn that Mr. Rochester was already “in a relationship”?
But in his new, melancholy novel, A Small Hotel, Robert Olen Butler considers the difficulties that one couple has in understanding each other, despite all the contemporary communication devices at their disposal. Michael and Kelly Hays, who are in the process of a divorce, call each other's cellphones incessantly, but can't seem to express their true feelings to each other.
The present action of A Small Hotel takes place over the course of one eventful day, when Kelly is supposed to finalize her divorce from Michael at a judge's chambers in Pensacola, Fla. Instead, she heads to the Olivier House hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter, where she and Michael spent their first night together 25 years earlier, and have been visiting ever since. She packs light, bringing just a few clothes, a bottle of Scotch, and enough Percocet to send a horse to his maker. She is woefully sad. , and in an introspective frame of mind.
Meanwhile, her soon-to-be-ex husband Michael, a successful lawyer, is off with new squeeze Laurie, a woman “young enough to be his daughter,” at a party at an old plantation where everyone must wear antebellum costumes ala Scarlett O'Hara. This isn't Michael's sort of thing—he's hit with a “niggling unease at showing himself in public in costume.” He puts up with it because Laurie wants him to, but he's preoccupied with memories of Kelly.
Given this set-up, it will seem clear who was the victim and who the victimized in Michael and Kelly's relationship, but through layers of flashbacks that build toward the crisis point in their marriage, Butler will gradually upend initial perceptions.
A Small Hotel drifts from past to present, alternating between Kelly's and Michael's perspective as each relives the key moments of their marriage, from their remarkable meeting during Mardi Gras to the birth of their daughter to each character's childhood, which reveals the crux of their problem: Michael has never told Kelly “I love you,” three words she's always desperately needed to hear.
Butler, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his story collection A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain, narrated by Vietnamese immigrants, has a reputation for taking risks with form, setting, and perspective in his inventive fiction. [He's written a book composed of short narratives delivered by severed heads (Severence), a story collection based on lurid tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams), and satirical novel set in hell (Hell). In contrast,] A Small Hotel, a quiet story about the disintegration of a marriage, seems like it wouldn't be much of a challenge for him. But it takes a writer of Butler's experience to be able to guide the reader through this cavalcade of flashbacks without being confusing or unclear, and to structure the revelations for maximum suspense and drama.
There are times when A Small Hotel feels unremittingly bleak. When Butler writes that “laughter wafts into the room like a fresh scent from the street” while Kelly berates herself and contemplates suicide, you might wish you could step outside and join the revelers on Bourbon Street. You also might question whether the issue of Michael not saying “I love you” and the psychology Butler creates to justify this is believable enough as a cause of the wreckage of this relationship. But well, why not? Surely some marriages have had this problem. And at the end of the book, when hope comes barreling in out of nowhere, you'll want to rush toward it quicker than Rhett Butler did toward Scarlett O'Hara in her green curtain dress.
Jenny Shank's first novel, The Ringer, was a finalist for The Reading the West Award, sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. She is the Books Editor of NewWest.Net.
The author, known for his risk-taking, offers a quiet but well-executed story about a disintigrating marriage
FICTION
A Small Hotel
Robert Olen Butler
(Grove, $24)
Some of literature's greatest plots would have been ruined by modern technology. Take Romeo and Juliet — if those lovesick teenagers had been able to text each other, there would have been no mix-ups over who was dead and who wasn't. And what if Jane Eyre could have gone online to learn that Mr. Rochester was already “in a relationship”?
But in his new, melancholy novel, A Small Hotel, Robert Olen Butler considers the difficulties that one couple has in understanding each other, despite all the contemporary communication devices at their disposal. Michael and Kelly Hays, who are in the process of a divorce, call each other's cellphones incessantly, but can't seem to express their true feelings to each other.
The present action of A Small Hotel takes place over the course of one eventful day, when Kelly is supposed to finalize her divorce from Michael at a judge's chambers in Pensacola, Fla. Instead, she heads to the Olivier House hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter, where she and Michael spent their first night together 25 years earlier, and have been visiting ever since. She packs light, bringing just a few clothes, a bottle of Scotch, and enough Percocet to send a horse to his maker. She is woefully sad. , and in an introspective frame of mind.
Meanwhile, her soon-to-be-ex husband Michael, a successful lawyer, is off with new squeeze Laurie, a woman “young enough to be his daughter,” at a party at an old plantation where everyone must wear antebellum costumes ala Scarlett O'Hara. This isn't Michael's sort of thing—he's hit with a “niggling unease at showing himself in public in costume.” He puts up with it because Laurie wants him to, but he's preoccupied with memories of Kelly.
Given this set-up, it will seem clear who was the victim and who the victimized in Michael and Kelly's relationship, but through layers of flashbacks that build toward the crisis point in their marriage, Butler will gradually upend initial perceptions.
A Small Hotel drifts from past to present, alternating between Kelly's and Michael's perspective as each relives the key moments of their marriage, from their remarkable meeting during Mardi Gras to the birth of their daughter to each character's childhood, which reveals the crux of their problem: Michael has never told Kelly “I love you,” three words she's always desperately needed to hear.
Butler, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for his story collection A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain, narrated by Vietnamese immigrants, has a reputation for taking risks with form, setting, and perspective in his inventive fiction. [He's written a book composed of short narratives delivered by severed heads (Severence), a story collection based on lurid tabloid headlines (Tabloid Dreams), and satirical novel set in hell (Hell). In contrast,] A Small Hotel, a quiet story about the disintegration of a marriage, seems like it wouldn't be much of a challenge for him. But it takes a writer of Butler's experience to be able to guide the reader through this cavalcade of flashbacks without being confusing or unclear, and to structure the revelations for maximum suspense and drama.
There are times when A Small Hotel feels unremittingly bleak. When Butler writes that “laughter wafts into the room like a fresh scent from the street” while Kelly berates herself and contemplates suicide, you might wish you could step outside and join the revelers on Bourbon Street. You also might question whether the issue of Michael not saying “I love you” and the psychology Butler creates to justify this is believable enough as a cause of the wreckage of this relationship. But well, why not? Surely some marriages have had this problem. And at the end of the book, when hope comes barreling in out of nowhere, you'll want to rush toward it quicker than Rhett Butler did toward Scarlett O'Hara in her green curtain dress.
Jenny Shank's first novel, The Ringer, was a finalist for The Reading the West Award, sponsored by the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association. She is the Books Editor of NewWest.Net.
July 10, 2011
Author: Robert Olen Butler
Title: A Small Hotel
Description (source): Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler has written fiction about far-ranging topics including hell, extraterrestrials, and the Vietnam War. With A Small Hotel, his twelfth novel, he has turned his attention to a new topic—the complexities of a male-female relationship—and delivers a beautifully told story of love, loss, and redemption.
Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hayes, who have decided to separate after twenty years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter—the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will forever affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha.
Butler masterfully weaves scenes of the present with memories from both the viewpoint of Michael and Kelly—scenes that span twenty years, taking the reader back to critical moments in the couple’s relationship and showing two people deeply in love but also struggling with their own insecurities and inabilities to express this love.
An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer” (Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram). (Marketing copy)
Review source: netgalley
Plot: There’s nothing extraneous in the plot of this book, which I read in an evening. The novel centers tightly around the two protagonists; even their daughter only appears in a couple of scenes. Nonetheless, once I realized what Kelly was up to, I couldn’t put the book down.
Characters: Michael and Kelly are the married/divorcing couple. The only other characters are their daughter and their extramarital love interests—Michael’s new girlfriend is a fairly prominent character. Both Michael and Kelly are sympathetic and I was rooting for both of them. Nonetheless, I found it difficult to believe that any man could really be as clueless/messed up as Michael.
Writing style: This is my first novel by Butler. He tells the story from both Kelly’s and Michael’s points of view, and there are lots of flashbacks (note: in my galley copy on kindle, flashbacks sometimes occurred without even a paragraph break, making it a little hard to follow sometimes. I hope that will be fixed in the final copy!)
Audience: I would call this literary fiction, though I would think it would be less likely that a man would pick it up (or enjoy it).
Wrap-up: Much of the book is set in the French Quarter and around New Orleans; since I was just there a week ago, I really enjoyed the setting; Butler captured the French Quarter very well. I had to read this book in one sitting, which is unusual for me, so that gives it extra points. 4/5*
Title: A Small Hotel
Description (source): Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler has written fiction about far-ranging topics including hell, extraterrestrials, and the Vietnam War. With A Small Hotel, his twelfth novel, he has turned his attention to a new topic—the complexities of a male-female relationship—and delivers a beautifully told story of love, loss, and redemption.
Set in contemporary New Orleans but working its way back in time, A Small Hotel chronicles the relationship between Michael and Kelly Hayes, who have decided to separate after twenty years of marriage. The book begins on the day that the Hays are to finalize their divorce. Kelly is due to be in court, but instead she drives from her home in Pensacola, Florida, across the panhandle to New Orleans and checks into Room 303 at the Olivier House in the city’s French Quarter—the hotel where she and Michael fell in love some twenty years earlier and where she now finds herself about to make a decision that will forever affect her, Michael, and their nineteen-year-old daughter, Samantha.
Butler masterfully weaves scenes of the present with memories from both the viewpoint of Michael and Kelly—scenes that span twenty years, taking the reader back to critical moments in the couple’s relationship and showing two people deeply in love but also struggling with their own insecurities and inabilities to express this love.
An intelligent, deeply moving, and remarkably written portrait of a relationship that reads as a cross between a romance novel and a literary page turner, A Small Hotel is a masterful story that will remind readers once again why Robert Olen Butler has been called the “best living American writer” (Jeff Guinn, Fort Worth Star-Telegram). (Marketing copy)
Review source: netgalley
Plot: There’s nothing extraneous in the plot of this book, which I read in an evening. The novel centers tightly around the two protagonists; even their daughter only appears in a couple of scenes. Nonetheless, once I realized what Kelly was up to, I couldn’t put the book down.
Characters: Michael and Kelly are the married/divorcing couple. The only other characters are their daughter and their extramarital love interests—Michael’s new girlfriend is a fairly prominent character. Both Michael and Kelly are sympathetic and I was rooting for both of them. Nonetheless, I found it difficult to believe that any man could really be as clueless/messed up as Michael.
Writing style: This is my first novel by Butler. He tells the story from both Kelly’s and Michael’s points of view, and there are lots of flashbacks (note: in my galley copy on kindle, flashbacks sometimes occurred without even a paragraph break, making it a little hard to follow sometimes. I hope that will be fixed in the final copy!)
Audience: I would call this literary fiction, though I would think it would be less likely that a man would pick it up (or enjoy it).
Wrap-up: Much of the book is set in the French Quarter and around New Orleans; since I was just there a week ago, I really enjoyed the setting; Butler captured the French Quarter very well. I had to read this book in one sitting, which is unusual for me, so that gives it extra points. 4/5*
April 2, 2011
This is the story of Michael and Kelly Hays. It tells us of how they met, married, lived and fell apart.
Michael is a lawyer and an emotionally distant man. He has been raised to believe that simply by "being there" he has expressed his emotions. This is learned behavior from his emotionally distant father. His father also teaches him that saying "I love you" is nothing more than words.
Kelly is a woman who deeply feels and needs to hear the words from her husband but never pushes him to say those three little words. Over the course of their 25 year marriage she begins to despair as she realizes that she needs those words to affirm who she is. This is perhaps due to her father's emotional distance and mental problems experienced during her own childhood.
We are allowed to see the experiences that have impacted on both Michael and Kelly through numerous flashbacks. One minute Kelly is sitting in a hotel room alone and the next she is at the beginning of her relationship with Michael, and then it is 10 years later or perhaps only a few months in the past. Kelly has left Pensacola FL on her way to a small hotel in New Orleans LA to remember and end it all. This hotel is where Kelly and Michael initially consummated their relationship and returned numerous times over the course of their marriage. Both she and Michael consider room 303 to be their room, and it is here she will end her life without Michael much as it began with him 20+ years earlier.
Meanwhile Michael is suffering from his own personal demons as he reflects on his childhood and marriage. He is only a few miles away in Mississippi, attending a costume ball with his new love interest Laurie. Laurie is 29 years old, only a few years older than Michael's daughter, and she has romanticized Michael's need for quiet. Regrettably she doesn't truly understand him or his inability to say much outside of the courtroom.
The irony is that both Michael and Kelly are more alike than they may know. Even though Kelly confesses to an affair, she never says that she wants her marriage to end. And Michael pushes through the divorce without ever saying that he wants the marriage to continue. To his mind, if Kelly wants to stay she should say so without coercion. Kelly feels that Michael should be able to say those three little words without coercion.
Mr. Butler has deftly woven a tale of longing that ultimately reveals that men and women are more alike then perhaps they realize. It is sometimes sad without being depressingly so and always realistic. Look for A Small Hotel to be released in July of this year. I'm definitely adding this to my to-be-purchased and read-again lists.
I thank both the publisher Grove Press and netGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
Michael is a lawyer and an emotionally distant man. He has been raised to believe that simply by "being there" he has expressed his emotions. This is learned behavior from his emotionally distant father. His father also teaches him that saying "I love you" is nothing more than words.
Kelly is a woman who deeply feels and needs to hear the words from her husband but never pushes him to say those three little words. Over the course of their 25 year marriage she begins to despair as she realizes that she needs those words to affirm who she is. This is perhaps due to her father's emotional distance and mental problems experienced during her own childhood.
We are allowed to see the experiences that have impacted on both Michael and Kelly through numerous flashbacks. One minute Kelly is sitting in a hotel room alone and the next she is at the beginning of her relationship with Michael, and then it is 10 years later or perhaps only a few months in the past. Kelly has left Pensacola FL on her way to a small hotel in New Orleans LA to remember and end it all. This hotel is where Kelly and Michael initially consummated their relationship and returned numerous times over the course of their marriage. Both she and Michael consider room 303 to be their room, and it is here she will end her life without Michael much as it began with him 20+ years earlier.
Meanwhile Michael is suffering from his own personal demons as he reflects on his childhood and marriage. He is only a few miles away in Mississippi, attending a costume ball with his new love interest Laurie. Laurie is 29 years old, only a few years older than Michael's daughter, and she has romanticized Michael's need for quiet. Regrettably she doesn't truly understand him or his inability to say much outside of the courtroom.
The irony is that both Michael and Kelly are more alike than they may know. Even though Kelly confesses to an affair, she never says that she wants her marriage to end. And Michael pushes through the divorce without ever saying that he wants the marriage to continue. To his mind, if Kelly wants to stay she should say so without coercion. Kelly feels that Michael should be able to say those three little words without coercion.
Mr. Butler has deftly woven a tale of longing that ultimately reveals that men and women are more alike then perhaps they realize. It is sometimes sad without being depressingly so and always realistic. Look for A Small Hotel to be released in July of this year. I'm definitely adding this to my to-be-purchased and read-again lists.
I thank both the publisher Grove Press and netGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
August 25, 2012
A wonderfully written short novel about a romantic triangle that becomes, as the New York Times put it, "an interrogation of the limitations and uses of language."
The principals are just three in number: Michael, a Pensacola lawyer who believes that loving someone means never having to say "I love you"; his wife Kelly, who instead of signing their divorce papers has driven to New Orleans with plans to commit suicide in the hotel where they first made love; and Michael's new girlfriend Laurie, who is 26 years his junior and firmly believes she can coax him into being the romantic partner she fantasizes about having. To that end, Laurie has persuaded Michael to accompany her to an old Louisiana plantation where they're having an ante-bellum fashion walk, and to dress up in period costume. The novel switches back and forth between the scenes of Kelly's anguish and Michael and Laurie's discussions, and as it does so Butler pulls off a neat trick, plunging each character backward into their own memories of what came before.
Some of the memories mesh together, and some conflict. Some are quite funny and some are sad and pathetic. But as Butler leads the reader along a path that goes both backward and forward in time, he slowly reveals who is at fault for the fracturing of this relationship, as well as showing why Laurie is likely to have the same problems with Michael as Kelly did.
As someone who grew up in Pensacola and has made my share of tourist visits to the Big Easy, I have to compliment Butler for his amazing accuracy in depicting not only the geography of these places but also the feel of being there in the heat of the summer. I actually had to go find and buy some beignets while reading this book.
Ultimately Butler's clever plot backs him into a narrative corner from which the only way out is either a turn toward devastating but predictable tragedy or a somewhat disappointing step into cliche territory, and Butler's choice is the latter. But that is the only letdown in a novel that all along the way is a marvelous and astonishing feat of writing and characterization. Highly recommended.
The principals are just three in number: Michael, a Pensacola lawyer who believes that loving someone means never having to say "I love you"; his wife Kelly, who instead of signing their divorce papers has driven to New Orleans with plans to commit suicide in the hotel where they first made love; and Michael's new girlfriend Laurie, who is 26 years his junior and firmly believes she can coax him into being the romantic partner she fantasizes about having. To that end, Laurie has persuaded Michael to accompany her to an old Louisiana plantation where they're having an ante-bellum fashion walk, and to dress up in period costume. The novel switches back and forth between the scenes of Kelly's anguish and Michael and Laurie's discussions, and as it does so Butler pulls off a neat trick, plunging each character backward into their own memories of what came before.
Some of the memories mesh together, and some conflict. Some are quite funny and some are sad and pathetic. But as Butler leads the reader along a path that goes both backward and forward in time, he slowly reveals who is at fault for the fracturing of this relationship, as well as showing why Laurie is likely to have the same problems with Michael as Kelly did.
As someone who grew up in Pensacola and has made my share of tourist visits to the Big Easy, I have to compliment Butler for his amazing accuracy in depicting not only the geography of these places but also the feel of being there in the heat of the summer. I actually had to go find and buy some beignets while reading this book.
Ultimately Butler's clever plot backs him into a narrative corner from which the only way out is either a turn toward devastating but predictable tragedy or a somewhat disappointing step into cliche territory, and Butler's choice is the latter. But that is the only letdown in a novel that all along the way is a marvelous and astonishing feat of writing and characterization. Highly recommended.
August 10, 2011
After reading Water for Elephants and loving it, I thought I would look into reading another adult fiction book. After looking at various websites for a “good” book to read, I ended up coming across Oprah’s summer reading book list, A Small Hotel being one of her picks. I read the summary on B&N and also some readers’ opinions about the book on GoodReads and thought I would give it a try.
Told without chapters, the best way I can describe this book is one that slowly builds tension and leaves the reader wanting to know what will happen next. I felt as though I was on a slow moving roller coaster waiting for the big drop. I did feel that some parts of the book were a little slow and contained over-the-top amounts of detail. Also, I wasn’t a huge fan of the way the author blurred the past with the present, making it sort of confusing going back and forth between the two.
I read this book in about half a day because I just needed to know what was going to happen with the characters. This book clearly shows how past events, whether among family or in other situations, can have a big impact on who you become as a person. Also, I think this book shows the importance of communication in a marriage…or how the lack of communication can ruin a marriage. What was interesting about A Small Hotel is how it wasn’t easy to just side with one of the characters, because they both took negative actions in regards to their marriage. I liked this because the situation between Kelly and Michael wasn’t just cut and dry, there were layers to their marriage and the ultimate failure of it. After rushing through A Small Hotel to see what was going to happen with the characters, I have to say that I think the ending was a little to simple considering how the rest of the book was written.
If you’re looking for a multi-layered book with a lot of details, this is the book for you. There were definitely some high points to it, but I just thought it was an average read.
Told without chapters, the best way I can describe this book is one that slowly builds tension and leaves the reader wanting to know what will happen next. I felt as though I was on a slow moving roller coaster waiting for the big drop. I did feel that some parts of the book were a little slow and contained over-the-top amounts of detail. Also, I wasn’t a huge fan of the way the author blurred the past with the present, making it sort of confusing going back and forth between the two.
I read this book in about half a day because I just needed to know what was going to happen with the characters. This book clearly shows how past events, whether among family or in other situations, can have a big impact on who you become as a person. Also, I think this book shows the importance of communication in a marriage…or how the lack of communication can ruin a marriage. What was interesting about A Small Hotel is how it wasn’t easy to just side with one of the characters, because they both took negative actions in regards to their marriage. I liked this because the situation between Kelly and Michael wasn’t just cut and dry, there were layers to their marriage and the ultimate failure of it. After rushing through A Small Hotel to see what was going to happen with the characters, I have to say that I think the ending was a little to simple considering how the rest of the book was written.
If you’re looking for a multi-layered book with a lot of details, this is the book for you. There were definitely some high points to it, but I just thought it was an average read.
April 21, 2011
Kelly and Michael are getting divorced. On the day it is to be finalized, Kelly goes to "their" hotel room in New Orleans while Michael is with his new girlfriend at a costume ball. Each of them review their memories of their relationship, and what this means for their futures.
The story is told by cutting the today moments with flashbacks from the past. At times this was a bit confusing as there were no real segues. Quite often it jumped back and forth, and I found myself re-reading parts to understand what time frame that part was in.
Emotionally, this was a dark and depressing read. Divorce is never pleasant, but even the flashbacks to happier times were tinged with melancholy and regret. Both Kelly and Michael seem to wish things happened differently, but neither were willing to say anything.
I did not like Michael's character. He is emotionally withdrawn, and prefers silence to any discussion. He grew up being told that words were just words, and that they didn't mean anything. Consequently, he has never said "I love you", and believes it means nothing at all to say it. He seems unable to understand that not everyone feels this way. He came across as selfish, self-absorbed and social awkward.
Overall, I didn't enjoy the story. I thought Kelly's actions were really drawn out and predictable. The ending seemed abrupt and out of character. Not believable. What the story did well was generate an emotional atmosphere and penetrated into the characters, the plot, and the reader. I may not have liked coming way feeling unhappy, but that level of involvement from the reader does take skill from the writer.
The story is told by cutting the today moments with flashbacks from the past. At times this was a bit confusing as there were no real segues. Quite often it jumped back and forth, and I found myself re-reading parts to understand what time frame that part was in.
Emotionally, this was a dark and depressing read. Divorce is never pleasant, but even the flashbacks to happier times were tinged with melancholy and regret. Both Kelly and Michael seem to wish things happened differently, but neither were willing to say anything.
I did not like Michael's character. He is emotionally withdrawn, and prefers silence to any discussion. He grew up being told that words were just words, and that they didn't mean anything. Consequently, he has never said "I love you", and believes it means nothing at all to say it. He seems unable to understand that not everyone feels this way. He came across as selfish, self-absorbed and social awkward.
Overall, I didn't enjoy the story. I thought Kelly's actions were really drawn out and predictable. The ending seemed abrupt and out of character. Not believable. What the story did well was generate an emotional atmosphere and penetrated into the characters, the plot, and the reader. I may not have liked coming way feeling unhappy, but that level of involvement from the reader does take skill from the writer.
August 13, 2021
I thought I should pick something from my want-to-read pile instead of continuing to pick new books. So I browsed my list and came across Robert Olen Butler's Pulitzer Prize winning A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain which I've wanted to read for a while. I read his book Hell and absolutely loved it and I read his creative writing book From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction years ago because I used to fancy myself a writer. (Oh who am I kidding. I still do:)
But as I was looking into Good Scent, I saw A Small Hotel in the sidebar and read the summary. It's set in various parts of Pensacola, FL and in New Orleans, LA at the Olivier House Hotel on Toulouse St in the Quarter. I live in Pensacola and just last month my wife and I stayed at the Olivier House Hotel. What the?! So I had to read it.
Coincidental personal connections aside, I loved it! The characters, the themes, the emotion, the heartbreaking inner life, the beautiful style. And it may have even changed me a little. Powerful stuff.
But as I was looking into Good Scent, I saw A Small Hotel in the sidebar and read the summary. It's set in various parts of Pensacola, FL and in New Orleans, LA at the Olivier House Hotel on Toulouse St in the Quarter. I live in Pensacola and just last month my wife and I stayed at the Olivier House Hotel. What the?! So I had to read it.
Coincidental personal connections aside, I loved it! The characters, the themes, the emotion, the heartbreaking inner life, the beautiful style. And it may have even changed me a little. Powerful stuff.
August 3, 2012
I've read several books lately that I liked a lot more at the beginning than the end. This was the opposite. I liked it more the deeper I got into it. At first I found the style annoying, all present tense, with very long sentences and lots of ands. And I just hated Michael and Laurie, assuming they were just another case of a selfish middle aged guy who dumped his wife as soon as a sexy young thing set her cap for him. But this story is full of surprises, for a fairly short (237 pages in my edition) novel. The story of Michael and Kelly's marriage is revealed in a series of memories on both parts. It is heartbreaking, and by the last couple dozen pages, I was just devouring the book.
WARNING: Very slight spoilers in next paragraph. Doesn't give away the ending, though.
I have never, never understood people who wanted to commit suicide. Even in the absolute lowest moments of my life, I have always wanted to live. But I could identify with Kelly in a way that I have never identified with any other suicidal person, fictional or non-fictional. Not because her husband couldn't tell her he loved her; my husband tells me frequently that he loves me. But Butler so vividly portrays Kelly's despair, and the reasons for it, that I could understand how she could lose her will to live.
WARNING: Very slight spoilers in next paragraph. Doesn't give away the ending, though.
I have never, never understood people who wanted to commit suicide. Even in the absolute lowest moments of my life, I have always wanted to live. But I could identify with Kelly in a way that I have never identified with any other suicidal person, fictional or non-fictional. Not because her husband couldn't tell her he loved her; my husband tells me frequently that he loves me. But Butler so vividly portrays Kelly's despair, and the reasons for it, that I could understand how she could lose her will to live.
September 22, 2011
Robert Olen Butler is one of my favorite writers. He is a literary champion, and I love all of his books. This was no exception. It was darker and more contemplative than some of his quirkier stuff (Hell, Mr. Spaceman, Tabloid Dreams, etc) but that doesn't mean it was any less affecting. One of my favorite things about this book was the almost 'stream-of-consciousness' writing he did throughout; there were some sentences that went on for multiple pages. And I didn't even realize it until it was done--"holy crap, that was one whole sentence!"--and then I'd go back and re-read it several times to really get the gist of it, and to revel in it, and to shake my head in awe and gratitude. It's just profound the way he so adequately depicts and conveys emotion and thought processes. Now, truth told, I don't think this was his strongest story, but I'm willing to let that go for the sheer writing power he continually exudes. If you are someone who is dealing with the disintegration of a marriage/relationship, or recently survived the harrowing ordeal of a disintegrated relationship, then you will get a lot out of this book. But even if you're not that person, you're likely to get a lot out of it. Recommended.
September 25, 2011
Are you in the mood for a heavy and deep read revolving around the end of a marriage? Then "A Small Hotel" is for you.
Butler masterfully weaves the story of Michael & Kelly, a 40-something couple in the process of ending their marriage. On what is supposed to be the day of their divorce, we hear each of their voices as they look back over the 25+ years of their relationship.
For Kelly, that day comes and she is unable to walk into the court to finalize the divorce. Instead she heads to the hotel she and Michael frequented throughout the course of their marriage.
Meanwhile Michael heads off for a romantic weekend getaway with his new girlfriend, yet finds himself increasingly distracted and thinking of Kelly.
Butler leads the reader down one path in waht appears an obvious turn of events. Then just as you think you have it all figured out and ho hum why bother reading the rest of the book, Butler abruptly turns the story down another lane. Peaking your interest all the more.
What you think you know and what you know aren't always the same thing. Actions speak louder than words also isn't necessarily true.
Butler masterfully weaves the story of Michael & Kelly, a 40-something couple in the process of ending their marriage. On what is supposed to be the day of their divorce, we hear each of their voices as they look back over the 25+ years of their relationship.
For Kelly, that day comes and she is unable to walk into the court to finalize the divorce. Instead she heads to the hotel she and Michael frequented throughout the course of their marriage.
Meanwhile Michael heads off for a romantic weekend getaway with his new girlfriend, yet finds himself increasingly distracted and thinking of Kelly.
Butler leads the reader down one path in waht appears an obvious turn of events. Then just as you think you have it all figured out and ho hum why bother reading the rest of the book, Butler abruptly turns the story down another lane. Peaking your interest all the more.
What you think you know and what you know aren't always the same thing. Actions speak louder than words also isn't necessarily true.
January 10, 2013
Another smash hit. But here's the thing about reading literature: There rarely is an explosion. Cops aren't running in every direction, serial killers or monsters or sifi planets aren't the story. Butler delivers in A Small Hotel exactly what he did in his Pulitzer novel and the tons of other award winning novels behind his name, literary prose telling us in moment by moment sensuous experience about humanity. This is a simple story of a husband dumping his wife for the younger woman. The wife attempting suicide and the husband rushing back to save her life. Blah! Unless you love beautiful writing and getting inside the heads of those characters through this wrenching experience is of interest to you, in which case, you will want to read this novel.
In Butler's world there are only two genres: Literary Fiction & Entertainment Fiction. Pure and simple. I think he's correct in that assertion. A Small Hotel is Literary Fiction.
In Butler's world there are only two genres: Literary Fiction & Entertainment Fiction. Pure and simple. I think he's correct in that assertion. A Small Hotel is Literary Fiction.
March 13, 2012
Starting with the day their divorce is to be finalized in court, the story of Kelly and Michael, alternate between the present and the past. Set in New Orleans, we're taken to the small hotel in which Kelly and Michael's relationship began more than 20 years ago and then back to the present where there's a bottle of Scotch and a bottle of pills in Room 303.
The author's method of switching time periods delivers memories of both Kelly and Michael very successfully and we gradually understand not just their personalities but also the emotions that drove them to the actions leading to the fateful day when their divorce was to be finalized.
It's so beautifully written and you feel the pain for both characters and will find yourself rooting for them both equally.
The author's method of switching time periods delivers memories of both Kelly and Michael very successfully and we gradually understand not just their personalities but also the emotions that drove them to the actions leading to the fateful day when their divorce was to be finalized.
It's so beautifully written and you feel the pain for both characters and will find yourself rooting for them both equally.
May 14, 2013
Insightful; extremely well-written. I loved that Butler's narrative showed the same events, as emotionally experienced by each spouse. He juxtaposed their understanding of each shared experience through the prism of each one's flawed and baggage-laden perspective. I found it to be both ordinary and profoundly sensitive; masterfully done, but with a light hand. Interestingly, most of my book club "hated" it; they thought the protagonists should just have communicated their needs & "gotten over" themselves. I saw, instead, the tragedy of human nature: despite the presence of love, our weaknesses & formative experiences can overpower us, even to the point of derailing our heartfelt wishes.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 321 reviews