My Review of Hotel Obscure by Lisette Brodey

I gave Hotel Obscure by Lisette Brodey 4* out of 5*

Book Description:

In a run-down neighbourhood in an unnamed city, people live and die in “the Obscure.”

Whether anyone remembers the real name of the derelict establishment is a mystery. In this six-story building, most who occupy the rooms are long-term residents, though some stay for as little as an hour.

The patronage is an eclectic group: musicians, writers, addicts, hookers, lonely people, poor people, rich people, once-well-off people, and those who have reason to hide from their former lives or to escape the demands of a disapproving and punishing society.

As shabby as the Obscure is, as long as its walls keep out the wind and the rain, it remains a shelter, a hideaway, and a home for the many bewildered souls.

Hotel Obscure is a collection of seventeen short stories that all take place in or around the “the Obscure.” While the stories stand alone, they are to be read in order. Some characters appear in multiple stories, and sometimes, a story will continue in an unexpected way.

The Obscure is life. It is death. In the blink of an eye, it may appear supernatural. It is a place we all visit … whether metaphorically or physically, at least once in our time on Earth.


My  Review:

Hotel Obscure was the first book I read after an illness earlier this year. And I must admit it was only because it was a collection of stories that I assumed I could pick up and read now and again. I was wrong; I couldn’t put it down, I read the whole book in one sitting. It took me a long time; these are quite lengthy stories, written in sequence and all, one way or another, interwoven. Each is so absorbing, so thought –provoking that I needed to sit back and take in what I had just read… and wanting to know more.

Each character comes to life on the page. Their actions, their dialogue, their thoughts, their emotions are fundamental to every story; are the story. And they took me with them into their situations, whether it was told through their dialogue a through a narrator. Their time at the shabby and run down Hotel Obscure changes; some are residents, fixtures in the setting, some are transient, visitors.  Some characters I liked more than others, most I could empathise with, one or two even frustrated me in their inability to see the reality of their situations. Once or twice I couldn't decide; I had a vague sense that I'd experienced something similar.

I admire the writing style of Lisette Brodey; in Hotel Obscure she has produced strong, evenly paced stories with strong believable characters. I would thoroughly recommend this thought provoking collection