Emily St. John Mandel is, first and foremost, a storyteller. She takes opposing narratives with seemingly no relation and skillfully intertwines them with suspense and verve. The Glass Hotel succeeds on an entirely new level from her previous books. It left me mesmerized and craving more.
— Gage
April 2020 Indie Next List
“In this ghostly story of ignoring what’s right in front of you, a group of characters try to grapple with what seems like inevitable choices. Mandel’s book is like the glass in the title: her language glitters while offering clarity and reflection, and her characters are like broken shards, mesmerizing in one light and dangerously ordinary in another. Combining the humanity and structure of Station Eleven with the brutal realism of her earlier works, The Glass Hotel is an exceptional novel.”
— Marika McCoola, Porter Square Books, Cambridge, MA
Description
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the bestselling author of Station Eleven and Sea of Tranquility, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events—the exposure of a massive criminal enterprise and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.
“The perfect novel ... Freshly mysterious.” —The Washington Post
Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby's glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis's billion-dollar business is really nothing more than a game of smoke and mirrors. When his scheme collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.
In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.
Look for Emily St. John Mandel’s bestselling new novel, Sea of Tranquility!
About the Author
EMILY ST. JOHN MANDEL's five previous novels include The Glass Hotel and Station Eleven, which was a finalist for a National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and has been translated into thirty-five languages. She lives in New York City.
Praise For…
A SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE FINALIST • ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER • NPR • TIME • THE WASHINGTON POST • ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY •FORTUNE • GLAMOUR • ELLE • THE AV CLUB • REAL SIMPLE • LITHUB • PARADE • THE BBC • THRILLIST • BOOKPAGE • ELECTRIC LITERATURE • GOOD HOUSEKEEPING • BUSTLE • THE ECONOMIST • INSIDER • HUFFPOST • NEW YORK POST • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
“Unerringly graceful. . . . A striking book that’s every bit as powerful—and timely—as its predecessor. . . . A masterpiece.” —NPR
“Flawlessly constructed.” —The Boston Globe
“Heartbreakingly resonant.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Lyrical, hypnotic.” —TheWall Street Journal
“A careful, damning study of the forms of disaster humanity brings down on itself.” —Vulture
“A beguiling tale about skewed morals, reckless lives and necessary means of escape.” —The Economist
“A wondrously entertaining novel.” —Slate
“A master in her prime . . . a marvel of intricacy from beginning to end.” —Entertainment Weekly
“Mandel’s gift is to weave realism out of extremity. She plants her flag where the ordinary and the astonishing meet. . . . She is our bard of waking up in the wrong time line.” —The New Yorker
“In this ghostly story of ignoring what’s right in front of you, a group of characters try to grapple with what seems like inevitable choices. Mandel’s book is like the glass in the title: her language glitters while offering clarity and reflection, and her characters are like broken shards, mesmerizing in one light and dangerously ordinary in another. Combining the humanity and structure of Station Eleven with the brutal realism of her earlier works, The Glass Hotel is an exceptional novel.”