BOOK REVIEW: Hotel by Arthur Hailey (1965)

**** Stars

I picked this book up for twenty cents at a second hand store in Te Aroha. All of Arthur Hailey’s books were in the shelf and were likable editions from the 1970s. Hailey's formula for storytelling is to study an industry and then write a human drama around that corner of the world.  To create this type of fiction he uses social observation, research and various genres including love story, disaster, procedural and mystery. This one is about a New Orleans hotel in the 1960s

In doing so, having this mixed bag approach, Hailey is surprisingly successful. Especially as this story is literally about the service industry. The experience is like stepping into a time machine with the narrative being influenced by the big issues of the era (most notably the Civil Rights Movement). By now you might be wondering how this story could possibly be interesting. At one point he is discussing how cooking fat could be going rancid well before its use-by-date. 
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Sounds ridiculous, right? Nonetheless, because of the dated tone of the book, the unremarkable prose and well-ordered telling of the story the end result is something suitably quaint. Hotel is tightly written and nothing ever gets away from the author. He does not linger on any part of the story for too long and maintains a balance between slice of life vignettes and the dramatic subplots. All of these elements are made plausible, not by wholly original characters, but by well-considered relationships between the characters. Sometimes he is a little too didactic with the vignettes but those moments are forgiven when you are quickly in a new scene and tensions between characters are being played out. For instance, the moment when the hotel thief unwittingly steals $15,000 while in a room pilfering another item. This scene is an enjoyable moment that leads to further dilemmas about greed, opportunity and unexpected pain for other characters that all fits within the logic of the story.

On a less likable side is the protagonist Peter McDermott who appears to be a cypher of Hailey himself. McDermott is pro-civil rights and Hailey puts him in a “realistic” moment where he is unable to be heroic in the face of bald racism (which must be acknowledged as appropriate, disinterested storytelling). Then on the other hand Hailey still refers to African Americans as Negroes and those characters are rarely given names like other - inconsequential, white - characters. Worst of all is when McDermott goes into the hotel basement furnace and describes the man working there. Embarrassingly, Hailey tells us how the man looked upon "McDermott" as a deity because he is the only man to have ever taken the time to come see him.

In the final assessment Hailey fills this story with a lot of characters and a lot of detail. By really caring about the way his characters interact with each other, combined with his methodical approach to writing, he manages to pull together this strange brew of genre and industry minutiae that you would not think you could possibly find interesting. Hotel is entertaining and unlike any other book I have ever read, to the author’s credit.