08/05/2024
Lavery’s appealingly offbeat debut novel (after the memoir Something That May Shock and Discredit You) explores the importance of a women’s hotel in the lives of its residents. As the story opens in 1960s New York City, breakfast at the Biedermeier, which was developed in the 1930s as a temporary residence for the burgeoning “office-girl generation,” has been discontinued, much to the displeasure of its residents. Katherine Heap, a longtime resident who’s since joined the staff as first-floor director, promises to pass along their complaints. Katherine’s backstory reveals the roots of her devotion to the Biedermeier, showing how as a 22-year-old recent transplant from Ohio, she found a new community and the strength to stay sober. Among the other residents are Lucianne Caruso, whose romantic and professional ups and downs Lavery chronicles to sympathetic effect; journalist Pauline Carter, who carries the flame of her Upper Manhattan family’s devotion to anarchism; Carol Lipscomb, a classics student who forms a makeshift art collective; and telephone operator Kitty Milham. There’s not much of a plot, but there are plenty of dramatic and consequential episodes, such as Katherine’s ill-fated attempt to help Kitty by impersonating her for a scheduled court appearance. Lavery colorfully captures the hotel in the last glimmers of its heyday and brings the misfit residents to life. Patient readers will find much to savor. (Oct.)
"I cannot imagine a more perfect use of an afternoon than reading this book." — Helen Rosner, The New Yorker
"[E]very character is distinct and their backstories, misadventures, and little victories intertwine skillfully. Lavery has a wonderful ear for a period turn-of-phrase and his prose glitters with humor and affection for human foibles. … Readers will be hard-pressed not to read sections aloud to passersby. … [A] stay at the Biedermeier is pure pleasure." — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Appealingly offbeat. … Lavery colorfully captures the hotel in the last glimmers of its heyday and brings the misfit residents to life. … Readers will find much to savor." — Publishers Weekly
"Lavery’s elegant, aching, and outright hilarious prose highlights the lives of these women as they find and lose jobs, upend their entire lives, make friends and forge bonds that, despite the transitory nature of the hotel, will last a lifetime. … Women's Hotel is a prime example of mastery of a craft; readers will want to devour it in a single sitting." — Booklist
"[A] close and loving exploration of a very particular time and place." — Library Journal
"A slice-of-life comedy … [Lavery's] humor, curiosity and empathy lend themselves perfectly to this charming subject matter." — BookPage
"Fans of dearly departed website the Toast will long be familiar with Daniel Lavery’s penchant for humorous turns of phrase and his distinctly literary imagination. In his debut novel, Lavery turns that sensibility to the brief phenomenon of women’s hotels … delightfully offbeat." — Vulture
08/23/2024
DEBUT This is the first novel from Lavery, an essayist (Something That May Shock and Discredit You) and former "Dear Prudence" columnist for Slate. An author's note explains that women's hotels were a unique kind of housing for single women that had begun to disappear by the mid-1960s, when this novel takes place. The main character, if there is one, is Katherine, who is recovering from alcohol use disorder and has lived and worked at the second-rate Biedermeier Hotel in New York City since 1955, but so many other hotel residents pop in and out—from Dolly the lesbian bartender to Pauline the anarchist to Josephine the elderly pickpocket—that readers may need to take notes. There is very little plot; the residents simply live their lives, interact with one another, and muse about things. Like the Biedermeier Hotel itself, the mannered writing style seems to belong to a bygone era—more 1930s than 1960s. VERDICT This close and loving exploration of a very particular time and place, while not a page-turner, is immersive enough to be oddly compelling for readers who are willing to give it a chance.—Eva Mitnick
★ 2024-07-10
This comic novel follows the lives of the denizens of the titular women’s hotel in 1960s New York.
For 35 years, the Biedermeier has provided room and half board to the working women who make it their home. But when the hotel’s ever-shrinking income forces Mrs. Mossler, the proprietress, to contemplate cutting the first meal of the day, staff members and residents are forced to consider that the establishment’s days may be numbered. Lavery’s long-form fiction debut is less an intricately plotted novel than a collection of minor tribulations and close observations. Luckily, he has assembled a cast that charms from page 1, including Katherine, the capable and somewhat too accommodating first-floor director; Stephen, an elevator operator who’s a borderline extortionist on moving day; Kitty, a first-floor resident who’s simply shameless about asking for favors; Pauline, a second-floor resident and part-time revolutionary; Lucianne, a third-floor resident and social columnist; J.D., a fourth-floor resident and George Sand biographer; Dolly, a lesbian bartender who also lives on the fourth floor—plus two new arrivals, the glamorous Gia and the rather hopeless Ruth. Despite the substantial ensemble and modest page count, every character is distinct and their backstories, misadventures, and little victories intertwine skillfully. Lavery has a wonderful ear for a period turn-of-phrase and his prose glitters with humor and affection for human foibles—for example, “Stephen was a sort of perpetual student who worked toward his degree after the manner of the fairy bird in the Brothers Grimm story about eternity, who every hundred years flew to the top of a distant mountain and sharpened his beak on it.” Readers will be hard-pressed not to read sections aloud to passersby.
For those unafraid to meander, a stay at the Biedermeier is pure pleasure.