Travelers Rest

by Keith Lee Morris

A chilling fable about a family marooned in a snowbound town whose grievous history intrudes on the dreamlike present.

The Addisons-Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie-are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

Once inside the hotel, the family is separated. As Julia and Tonio drift through the maze of the hotel's spectral interiors, struggling to make sense of the building's alluring powers, Dewey ventures outward to a secret-filled diner across the street. Meanwhile, a desperate Robbie quickly succumbs to his old vices, drifting ever further from the ones who love him most. With each passing hour, dreams and memories blur, tearing a hole in the fabric of our perceived reality and leaving the Addisons in a ceaseless search for one another. At each turn a mysterious force prevents them from reuniting, until at last Julia is faced with an impossible choice. Can this mother save her family from the fate of becoming Souvenirs-those citizens trapped forever in magnetic Good Night-or, worse, from disappearing entirely?

With the fearsome intensity of a ghost story, the magical spark of a fairy tale, and the emotional depth of the finest family sagas, Keith Lee Morris takes us on a journey beyond the realm of the known. Featuring prose as dizzyingly beautiful as the mystical world Morris creates, Travelers Rest is both a mind-altering meditation on the nature of consciousness and a heartbreaking story of a family on the brink of survival.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Mystery, Fantasy, Adult Fiction, Paranormal, Science Fiction

358 pages, Hardcover

First published January 5, 2016

About the author

Keith Lee Morris is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Clemson University. His previous book, THE DART LEAGUE KING, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. His writing has appeared in many publications including Tin House, the Southern Review and the New England Review..

Reviews

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I used to make it a point of pride to finish every book I started, but when I turned 40, I decided to give myself permission to stop reading books that were bad or boring. This is easily the most tedious book that I've actually read to the end. In the beginning, it's a promising Twilight Zone meets The Shining tale about a family that stops in the middle of a snowstorm to stay at a hotel in the small town of Good Night. Everything about the town, and especially the hotel, is creepy, and soon the family members have been separated and unable to find each other. But the more I learned learn about the family members, the less I cared about them, and the surreal, dream-like situations become numbingly repetitious. If you're stuck in a snowstorm, this might be a decent read, but otherwise, skip it, or better yet, re-read The Shining.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tonio and Julia Addison are driving across country, accompanied by their ten year old son, Dewey, and Tonio’s neer-do-well brother, Robbie. Caught in a snowstorm, they take refuge in a small mining town called Good Night which has a hotel, called The Traveller’s Rest. From the start, things seem strange – the hotel has no heating, seemingly no food and little in the way of staff. However, Julia is immediately drawn to it and is adamant they should stay. With the snow piling up and a diner and bar in reasonable proximity, the others agree despite their misgivings.

Gradually, we begin to learn of the relationships between this family. Julia’s attraction to Robbie, who has just left a rehabilitation programme and the various interplay between them. True to character, it is not long before Robbie decides to help himself with some cash from Tonio’s wallet and find the local bar and, before long, the family members find themselves separated and wandering in what evolves into a dreamscape of a book where the past is bleeding into the present.

Quotes from Proust are used at the beginnings of chapters and this novel does have that same, meandering quality. Despite this book being described as similar to Shirley Jackson or Stephen King (there are obvious comparisons with “The Shining”), I did not find this had either the horror factor of King or the characters which make Jackson’s books so deeply satisfying. Indeed, I found it difficult to really connect with these characters or feel any particular sense of concern about their circumstances.

This was not a bad book, but it failed to grip me. The ending brought everything together satisfactorily, but for much of it, I felt rather like the characters – groping around in the dark for some kind of plot or structure to make sense of the storyline. Lastly, I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

[Cheryl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Abandoning this one. It's not for me. Not scary or creepy. More like a dull dream where people wander in circles aimlessly and talk philosophy about the nature of Self.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your standard horror novel! It's like the The Shining went on a date with Hotel California and they hung out Back to the Future or something like that. It was really good and just creepy enough to keep you turning the pages.

The Addison's are a pretty normal family - Mom, Dad, Son on their way home from picking up Uncle Robbie from rehab. They get caught in a snowstorm and have to stop at the Travelers Rest motel. This is not your normal motel or your normal town. It never stops snowing and the laws of physics don't seem to apply.

[Book Riot Community]

I love weird books and books that take place in winter, so this one rang all my bells. A family traveling through a storm in Idaho, where they've just picked up their uncle from rehab, are forced to spend the night in the Travelers Rest hotel. But the laws of physics don't work quite the same inside the hotel, and soon the family is separated and fighting to escape the building's alluring yet frightening pull.

Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/category/all-the-...

[Desiree Streib · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I finished this book with more questions than answers. Yes, it was creepy. Yes, it was unique. But in my opinion, it just didn't deliver. A family gets stuck in a snowstorm on their way from picking up a family member from rehab. They pull off into a town called Good Night, Iowa and decide to stay at a hotel called Travelers Rest. After spending the first night, strange things start to happen. The family ends up separated and cannot be reunited for strange and various reasons.
The story has an interesting concept, but I often found myself confused by the change of setting and characters. Many things take place out of order, and I got lost as to what was going on at what times. The author is a fantastic writer who knows how to make the words flow, but I wish this book had just a little more to it.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, its a lie. I didn't finish. I read to about page 175. I did skim the last half to see how everything wrapped up. What I read I enjoyed enough, but it never completely sucked me in. I didn't feel drawn to the characters and kinda didn't care. I can say it was well written. I wish it had just been ....tighter. The characters more...relatable for me. I do feel bad for not reading it in full, but it has been sitting with me on my lunch break and the sofa at home. I just didn't feel that need to pick it up to see what happened next. I did give it 3 stars. I do think it deserves that much.

[Kristine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Original review can be found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...
** I received an advanced readers copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review.**

I did not find this book creepy or mysterious or clever and mystical. The word that best describes my feelings on this book is bored. Unfortunately is was so dull that I had a really hard time getting through it.

When the Addisons find themselves at Travelers Rest, an old hotel in the town of Good Night, strange things begin happening. They find themselves separated with no way to get back to each other. In theory this sounds exciting or at the very least interesting right? Well, it wasn't. The story went back and forth between each character where nothing happened and they kept talking and going in circles. After a while of the same thing happening or not happening it became a little painful.

The characters were also quite lifeless and dull which made it hard for me care about the outcome of the story. I wasn't drawn to any of them and therefore I wasn't routing for an outcome of any kind. They were just kind of blah with no personalities to speak of.

This book obviously wasn't for me so I will keep my thoughts brief. The premise of the story was good and there was nothing wrong with the writing, it was the actual story that had me yawning and struggling to finish. Reviews are all over the map so I encourage you to form your own opinion.

[Constance · Rating 2 out of 5]

So many questions. Who doesn't love a good, spooky ghost story? I do, and was disappointed. So much doesn't add up. Why are only two characters apparently reincarnated? Why do some remain in Good Night eternally? How does the fire start? How does Stephanie get out? Why is she speaking in voices? Why are Hector and his father in this story at all? Why does "degenerate" Robbie become the the survivor? Where do these people get groceries from? Why don't they leave? Why would Hugh leave (go to Seattle) and return? What's the point of Rose dwelling on being an orphan? Why does Rose seek out Julia to party with? Why in the heck does Dewey go back there as an adult? Why does this author teach writing? So many questions. What I like about this book is the cover. It has great cover art.

[Maya Panika · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Addisons, a troubled family, perhaps closer to breaking up than any of them know, are travelling from Washington , home to South Carolina, when a snow storm forces them off the highway to seek shelter in the town of Good Night. They check into the Traveler’s Rest, an old fashioned hotel, the only hotel in this tiny, isolated town - and that is the last any of them will know of normal life for… ever? The bones of the story are worked around vague and never-detailed quantum magic; the dead and alive cat in the passageway was a bit of a massive, floodlit pointy finger of a giveaway there. There are dead and alive people too and strange time-slips and… well, all sorts of goings on as history bleeds into the ever-shifting now and on into the changing future. The flesh and blood of the tale is about how this odd family fails to function even across time and space. The book blurb compares this to Groundhog Day but the connection is very slight; there seemed to be little learning done as the Addisons, the townspeople and those trapped in the Traveler’s Rest, flit through time and space, meeting each other as ghosts, apparently destined to repeat the same elemental, fatal mistakes again and again and again. It’s an odd tale and a densely written book, packed with detail. It’s not always the easiest read, the discordant timescales and multiple characters make this something you have to work at much of the time. I enjoyed it, but always hoping for more than it ultimately gave.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 3 out of 5]

A small family is driving from Seattle, where they picked up Uncle Robbie from rehab, back to South Carolina. They hit a snowstorm in Idaho and pull off the interstate to spend the night in a hotel. The Travelers Rest is a grand old place, currently being renovated and the only person they meet inside is the elderly owner. Quickly things start to go wrong.

Keith Lee Morris's book starts out as a novel about the Addison family; the fractures in their relationships highlighted by the presence of Tonio's little brother, the guy who is ambivalent about living near his disapproving sibling, while being attracted to his wife. The novel quickly changes though, once they reach the isolated mountain town with its decaying hotel, into what first looks like a horror novel, and it kind of is, but not in any traditional way, as the hotel rapidly separates each family member from the others. Tonio is stuck in an endless cycle of looking for his wife in the snowstorm and sitting in a parlor with the hotel owner. His wife is trapped in a room, but not that unhappy about it. His brother thinks he's left to go drinking as a choice he made, but with each passing day, he finds himself with less and less agency. And Tonio's son is left alone in an empty, unheated hotel, being fed by the owners of the diner across the street, who may understand his situation a lot better than he thinks.

This is a novel that starts strong and seems to be going in a specific direction, but then turns into something entirely different. This is an odd book. With every character isolated from the others, it turns into several different stories running in parallel. It also takes its time, meandering along as each character remains stuck. Two things kept me reading; the quality of the writing and the story of the boy, the one person still out in the world able to make decisions and try to find his family.

[Jeri · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off well enough but lost me about halfway and didn't much care how it ended or what happened to the characters by that point. Just skimmed to the ending.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keith Lee Morris is a terrific writer, plain and simple. That being said, there is nothing plain and simple about this journey into the internal. I believe that readers are disappointed when they compare it to conventional horror, and this is anything but. While I know authors may enjoy comparisons to Stephen King, that is to reduce Morris' novel into a thickly plotted, narrative driven thrill ride. It is narrative driven, but the narrative is internal, subtle. The family who stops in Travelers Rest faces more than a blizzard; instead, each faces personal crises of identity, and yeah, occasionally of faith. But the crises are interesting, original, and specific--terrifically challenging, but not so much that is should scare readers. We hang with this family because we care deeply about them, and while they separate too quickly for my liking, it's this separation that creates the strong motion that drives the novel and excites the reader. Was I scared? Oh, heck yea, at times, but it was a fear driven from my concern about the characters' well being, their potential, their future, their possible reconciliation.

I especially admired the characters of Dewey and Robbie, not because they were better written than the others, but because they spoke to me. Their crises were most vital, especially ten year old Dewey, who interacts with the town in ways that speak of his youth and, simultaneously, his maturity. And maybe I'm attracted to characters with vices, but Robbie seemed very real to me, and his struggles were exciting because they reflect the danger of self analysis most of all. But the entire family held my interest, as did the setting itself. It's NOT the Overlook, even though their captivity may seem on the surface similar. Travelers Rest in an entirely new setting, one of those that is a character as real as any in the book.

What's most impressive is that, having read all of Morris's good fiction and short stories, this one has an entirely new voice; I admire writers who can't be pigeon holed, and Morris is original, even compared to his other excellent novels and stories. So yeah, I recommend this book to everyone, but don't do it, Morris, or yourself a disservice by placing it squarely within the horror genre. I'm a horror fan, admittedly, and I love the elements of horror in this. But it's not a King novel, and that's a very good thing. Take a trip to Travelers Rest; you'll be glad you did...and you'll be even more glad that you've never literally ventured there.

[Sara Gerot · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect from this book except that it takes place in the winter and involves a hotel. It was completely slipstream. Seems weird that readers are upset that this wasn't horror enough, or scary enough. Like what is enough? I feel like it tapped into one of my most frightening nightmares, labyrinthine spaces of which you are vaguely familiar but can't really navigate. Non-responsive parents. It was existentially scary. The writing was lovely. The characters were great. The little boy is dead on. 10 years olds (I have one right now) have insane vocabulary and only a burgeoning understanding of context. I could really go on and on about all the things I loved in this book, but I think it was the best winter book I read this winter. Awesome.

[David Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm grateful to the publisher for letting me have a copy of this book via NetGalley.

This is an excellent book, both entertaining and though-provoking. It is not, though, especially in the first part, an easy, tripping along read. Nor does it easily fit into genre categories. For both of these reasons I fear it may struggle to find its audience.

Travelers Rest is the story of the Addisons - Tonio and Julia, their ten year old son Dewey (referred to sometimes at "The Dooze Man") and dissolute (but fun company) Uncle Robbie. On a snowy winter's night they are travelling through Idaho on Interstate-90 and stop off at the town of Good Night, with its old hotel, Travelers[sic] Rest. The town seems familiar: "I've heard of this place". The name of the hotel presents a puzzle - something isn't right about it: it is a statement of fact: "yes, travellers rested. All people did, eventually..." The hotel itself is old fashioned, empty, draped in dust cloths ("basically all the stuff you saw on TV whenever they wanted to get across the idea that someplace was abandoned and scary"). The reader's Gothic antennae will be twitching at this point - just what is going to assault this family? Ghosts? Monsters? Aliens? The iolated and inbred residents of a back-of-nowhere community? - and it comes as no surprise that something happens.

But the "what" - that's another matter. Even setting aside concerns about spoilers, it's hard to describe exactly what follows, as the four are separated and... acted on... by the town that is Good Night.

Cold and aloneness are the abiding impressions ("her mind felt white with snow, cold and pleasantly numb". Everything takes place in an epic snowstorm - we are constantly told of the settling snow, hear its sound, smell it, experience the sheer physicality and bone numbing coldness of the winter as well as the deprivation of vision, of free movement, that the snow brings. To be in the snow for long is pain and death but to escape from it is to be confined in the rackety maze of the town, a labyrinth of stairs, tunnels and passages which seems to extend not just across space but across time. The experiences of the separated Addisons - each reliving the moments in the past that made them who they are - overlaps with those of other visitors from more than a hundred years ago. To begin with we know (we think) which is which but as everybody goes further into that maze it becomes unclear who is remembering who, who is becoming or coming from who. There seem to be echoes between now and then, but what is cause and what is effect is mysterious, tantalising.

This much is clear - the Addisons are not the first to lose themselves in Good Night. Others have been before and left behind "souvenirs" - lost, bewildered children, resented by the regular townsfolk. It's a fate Dewey is determined to avoid, but alone, hungry and cold, what is he to do?

The story uses horror tropes and has a setting familiar from countless speculative and weird tales - it's easy to see influences here from Stephen King or even HP Lovecraft, whether direct or simply because they've become part of the culture - but I don't think that Morris's main business is with that. He doesn't downplay these - as I've quoted above, they are often overtly deployed. But what seems to be going on here is much more metaphorical, much more internal and this is where I fear the introspective nature of much of the prose may frustrate some. We're given extensive sections where the writing explores what it is like to be Dewey, a boy/ young man on the threshold of adolescence but in many respects a loner, an observer. We're told about Tonio and the impact of him of Dewey: "And then came Dewey. Game over. Defenses wiped out immediately, entirely, white flag waving in the breeze. Dewey was a different thing altogether, for which he had no classification-his son was so much a part of his own internal world that is was hard to believe anything could happen to him that didn't also happen, simulataneously, to himself." We hear of Julia's life in which "she was constantly busy, and yet she never felt she was really doing anything." We learn of Uncle Robbie' - good old Uncle Robbie - anguish, aimlessness, his drug and drink binges and we feel the cold again when his relationship with his less than warm and sympathetic parents is exposed.

Themes of being lost - in the maze of Good Night, in an old mine, in a scary hotel, in one's own thoughts and feelings - and found - and finding others and losing them - recur endlessly, just as Tonio tries, repeatedly, to escape from his endless, neither now-nor-them, afternoon with the creepy hotel keeper (Scooby Doo is references several times!) the mysterious Rose who seems to be his companion. It's no use, Tonio always seems to lose himself in the snow and able only to crawl back into the hotel.

I found it a profoundly disturbing yet fascinating book. Morris easily matches or exceeds one's expectations, built up by all that overt foreshadowing - there is true horror here - but he also subverts them, using his characters' own unease about who they are and where they are going to undo them. That, in the end, is far more chilling than the gothic stuff because it connects at a very basic level with the reader.

So avoid those out of the way, mid West towns - if you're able...

[Stef Smulders · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow and boring with a lot of repetitive descriptions. The supernatural events don’t make sense to me. The voice of the child is too artificial. Too bad, as I liked the author’s stories in Call it what you want.

[Beth Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

People hate this book.

And I get it, I do. For one thing, it was very badly marketed as the next The Shining, when the absolutely only things the two books have in common are hotels and snow. That's it. There's no comparison between the two books otherwise. Readers looking for gory action-packed creeps, this is NOT their book. If you have to call it horror at all, it's only so in terms of literary horror.

That's because my opinion is, the guy who wrote this is literary. He's a professor, for one thing. He also loves a run-on sentence. There are times when the reader needs to take a deep breath in the middle of one of his sentences. This is not to say the guy can't write, because he can. He most definitely can.

Let's use a college word to describe this book: gestalt. There's a lot of nothing happening immediately in these pages and yet, the characters' lives are being massively transformed. Some of them are ghosts, or appear to become ghosts. But not exactly.

There are two ways I can personally relate to this book. The first was one Christmas I caught a virus and ran a fever of 106. I knew there were important decisions being discussed regarding my immediate situation out in the hall of the hospital, but I was so weighted down, so blurred and so cold, I just couldn't bring myself to participate in any way, or even care. This book is like a fever dream, there, but not there. All that slogging through heavy snow and endless passageways. The second was coming out of anesthesia following oral surgery: I was chasing rectangles of brilliant unknown colors and if that damned woman would just stop snapping her fingers in my face and telling me to wakey wakey, and let me have 30 more seconds, I could finally grasp one of those colors, pin it down and name it. But nope: suddenly very awake and sober and forcibly aware of bloody cotton guaze.

I suppose all this makes it sound like this IS a terrible book and it is NOT. But I'm also not going to lie and tell you that I think I grasped all of it. I know I didn't. The characters of Dewey and his Uncle Robbie are believable, though Dewey in no way resembles most 10 year olds. There's humor within all of this, also.

I think most likely this book will linger at the edge of my consciousness for awhile and I'll puzzle over that very fact. I am glad I have a decent background in college literary fiction to identify what I was reading and not some poor schmuck looking for Dean Koontz thrills. That's the only reason I can think to explain some of the serious anger issues behind a few of the bad reviews for this book.

In the end, guys, it's just a book. Some guy wrote it and it means something to him and therefore, it means something to me, as a reader. Whether it's my new favorite thing or not doesn't matter, but kindness does. Just because you don't enjoy or understand something, doesn't mean you need to trash it, necessarily. Just move on.

Actual rating: 3.5

[Marjorie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book starts off so similar to “The Shining” by Stephen King – snow storm, spooky hotel, unstable main character. There’s the married couple, Julia and Tonio Addison, their 10-year-old son, Dewey, and Tonio’s brother, Robbie, an addict recently released from rehab. On their way home after picking up Robbie, they decide to stop at the town of Good Night, Idaho and stay the night at the hotel, Travelers Rest.

The four of them become separated and as they wandered the endless halls and tunnels of the hotel, at times their minds became numb and trancelike. I have to say that at times during the first half of the book, my mind also became numb and trancelike and I felt that parts went on for too long. But each time I would start to get a bit bored with the wandering, something would happen to spike my interest. Once the book starts going back in time and you start to see the correlation between the past and the present, it becomes much more interesting again.

The author does know how to create compelling characters and how to pull you into the story. He’s created a very unique world and casts a thought provoking light on perception and consciousness. It’s a very slow-moving eerie story and also quite a sad one, as these generations of people try to break the pull this town has on them.

I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway and am under no obligation to give a review.

[Becky Spratford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Words That Describe This Book: creepy, methodically paced, thought provoking

A great backlist option for fans of Samanta Schweblin or Carmen Maria Machado.

Becky’s Soundbite Review:
“A family-- husband, wife, 10 year old son, and recovering alcoholic uncle are traveling East from Washington back to South Carolina over the Christmas break when a snow storm forces them to stop for the night in Good Night, Idaho at the historic "Travelers Rest" hotel, a seemingly small decision that forever changes all of their lives. With its slow burn pacing, readers are swept up into a time bending, haunted house story that is terrifying without any blood, but features a menace that is definitely not of this world. It is a story about familial love, memory, and identity that will make you think, but it is the creepy tone that will continue to haunt you after the final page. Think Twilight Zone meets The Shining and you know what your stay at Travelers Rest will entail.” [34 seconds]

Full review on the blog: https://raforall.blogspot.com/2016/02...

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the plot of this novel and I thought the author tied up loose ends well. But there were some stylistic decisions that just ruined things for me. Sooooooooo many run on sentences (with lots of parentheses, mind you) that it became hard--though not hard enough to make me give less than two stars--to focus on this book, although I did enjoy it. <--if that sentence annoyed you then this book will infuriate you.

There were times where I really wanted to put it down because reading just became so tedious. Perhaps I've read too much Palahniuk, but I can't remember the last time I got lost in the middle of so many sentences. Also, switching narrators from chapter to chapter is a great tactic, but only when the characters have drastically different voices. It usually took me about a page and a half to realize who I was hearing from.

I enjoyed this plot, but I won't be reading any more of the author's work.

[Ian Mathers · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was... just okay? A bit of a let down, honestly. Not sure why; the premise was fine, and Morris does a good job at presenting these characters as real, flawed people. I guess a big part of it is a trope I've hated since I was a little kid, where people from our normal world encounter the clearly supernatural/otherwise unusual, encounter it in a way where the rules at work should be clear and/or other people are explicitly telling them how things work, and far past the point where it makes sense in any way except for The Plot Needs It, they act like they have no idea what's going on or what they should do. I'm mixed about the ending, too; I kind of like how it's ambiguous or bittersweet, except to the extent that it feels like there was never a clear picture of what's going on here (but not in a way that satisfies).

[Pam · Rating 1 out of 5]

I agree with Cheryl who gave this book a two star rating. I don't usually score a book I didn't finish but as I got to page 291 before deciding not to persist I reckon I'm entitled to rate it.
Written by a professor of English and Creative writing it is certainly full of the arty ramblings that I recall from University days.
One can only hope that his students don't listen, are not guided by his idea of writing and follow their own paths.

[Jamie Gogocha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars for the tremendous potential this story had. I'm sincerely disappointed that with the premise, the structure, and the promising characters that the author couldn't bring it.

This book was a chore to read, but there was a glimmer of hope that kept me skimming for the last 200 pages rather than banish this one to my dnf shelf.

[Brandi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked it, but wanted to like it more. Or it to be better...I loved the cover though. Reminds me of the photographs of Tom Kirsch on opacity.us

[Jacqui · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very neat idea, but the execution could have been better. Also, there were so many long, run-on sentences, which were really annoying.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weird, terrible ending.

[ben khoh · Rating 2 out of 5]

this felt like a maze but when you finally finished it you ended up like ten feet from where you originally started

[Downward · Rating 2 out of 5]

review to be published elsewhere.

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the hell did I just read?

Author blurbs for this novel suggest that fans of Twin Peaks and The Shining will find much to appreciate in this dark novel by Keith Lee Morris. I'm a fan of both those references and love a good ghost or supernatural story. Upon completion of this novel, however, I am utterly at a loss. The older I get, the less I want to spend time reading books that just end up frustrating me -
nonetheless, once I got halfway through Travelers Rest, I foolishly persisted, thinking there would be some resolution in the end. Overall, my suspicion is that the author had grand intentions with this book that just went awry and/or lost among a jumble of run-on sentences that endlessly spiral the reader off into ("Huh?") head-scratching, mind-numbing territory.

The premise of the book is intriguing: a small family, consisting of a husband and wife, their son, and the husband's ne'er-do-well brother are travelling from Seattle to the Atlantic coast for a well-needed respite and change of scene. Along the way, they decide to make a stopover, due to a blizzard that infuriatingly goes on and on and is referenced for DAYS throughout the plot. They pause in their travels in a small, mysterious town called Good Night, Idaho. There is little of interest in the town and apparently not too many inhabitants. It's creepy, to put it succinctly. They choose to stay in the grand, but rambling and in need of serious repair hotel called Travelers Rest. Upon entering its foreboding doors, each one of their lives - yes, even the oddly too precocious 10 year-old son's - wanders off into curious directions. Morris wastes no time getting into it either. Their very first night spent in the hotel has each family member breaking off to explore the hotel and the town. A majority of the novel is occupied with each of them making their own curious discoveries about the strange town, themselves, their relations to one another, and their pasts (which aren't really that interesting to begin with, let's face it). Ultimately, they seem to make their own awkward attempts (or in some cases, non-attempts) to reunite with one another, never quite getting there. It seems like chapters are spent with each character metaphorically moving through sticky, sloggy syrup just to get from point A to point B. At 300+ pages, it's a tedious, Twlight Zone-like rabbit hole to descend into. The trouble is, it isn't even the good
Twilight Zone. It's just plain tiresome. And there are far too many questions left unanswered.

I will say that if you're a fan of alternate universes and the time-space continuum - well, you may like this book. Somewhat. Give it a try. Skimming an interview with the author in the paperback edition I read, it appears that Morris is occupied a great deal by dreams, and the concept of dreams determining destinies of the present and future. I give Morris credit for tackling such a heady subject, but unfortunately, this story just goes nowhere, and quickly. Don't be too deceived by the first few intriguing pages. Once each family member splits off on their own separate journeys, you may be bound to get just as lost as they apparently were. If I were star rating, I would give this 1.5 for effort, but I just can't find it in me to round it to 2 stars.

[Joanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Travelers Rest by Keith Lee Morris is a novel that blends elements of surrealism, family drama, and supernatural intrigue, but it ultimately left me with mixed feelings. The story follows the Addison family—Julia, Tonio, their young son Dewey, and Tonio’s troubled brother Robbie—who find themselves stranded in the snowbound town of Good Night, Idaho. Seeking shelter in the eerie, decaying Travelers Rest hotel, they soon become trapped in a strange, dreamlike world where the boundaries of time, space, and memory begin to dissolve.

The atmosphere in the book is undeniably unsettling. The hotel itself, with its maze-like corridors and distorted reality, is an excellent setting for a psychological exploration of the family’s fractured relationships. The supernatural elements are subtly woven into the narrative, creating a sense of mystery and tension. Morris's prose is often beautiful, and the novel does have a haunting, almost hypnotic quality that keeps you turning the pages, even if it’s unclear exactly what you're reading at times.

However, while the concept is intriguing, the execution didn’t fully resonate with me. The pacing feels uneven, particularly in the middle sections of the novel. I had trouble connecting with the characters, especially Julia and Tonio, who felt more like vehicles for the novel’s philosophical musings than fully realized people. Dewey and Robbie, on the other hand, stood out more, and their struggles were more engaging—Dewey's innocent yet perceptive interactions with the town and Robbie’s battle with his own demons added emotional depth to the otherwise abstract narrative.

The book's comparisons to The Shining and The Haunting of Hill House are somewhat fitting in terms of the isolated setting and the psychological undercurrents, but Travelers Rest lacks the same emotional heft or the tightly wound tension of those classics. Instead, it often meanders into a kind of surreal limbo, which, for some readers, might be a compelling journey. For me, though, I found it hard to stay emotionally invested in the family’s plight, especially when their interactions felt so distant and cryptic.

By the end, everything comes together in a way that ties up the threads of the story, but the journey to get there felt a little too obscure and, at times, frustrating. While I appreciated the thematic depth—the novel’s exploration of memory, identity, and the nature of existence—I wished for more connection to the characters’ emotional arcs and a clearer narrative thread.

Travelers Rest is a haunting and thought-provoking novel, but it’s not the spine-tingling supernatural experience I was expecting. If you’re in the mood for a slow, atmospheric exploration of family dynamics and existential themes, you might find this a rewarding read. But for those looking for more traditional horror or a gripping narrative, it might not hit the mark.