The challenge of telling multiple stories in one novel is that all the stories need to have equal weight on a reader's interest level. For example, and I may be in the minority here, when I began reading George R.R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, which switches point-of-view characters multiple times throughout the novel, I found myself more interested in one character's story over the others, and I ended up stopping after 150 pages because the multiple storylines didn't equally draw my interest. I've read plot-driven stories my entire life, so a story with multiple storylines across multiple timelines shouldn't work, if traditional storytelling wisdom is correct.
But then there's The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, the writer of the groundbreaking post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven. The Glass Hotel could never be an example of the traditional plot-driven story, but it works so well, and it is the perfect example that there are multiple ways to tell an intriguing story.
It's actually a little difficult to pin down exactly what The Glass Hotel is about because it defies the typical synopsis you read on the inside cover of a new hardcover novel, and the actual synopsis of the novel itself doesn't quite do it justice. But like Station Eleven before it, The Glass Hotel is driven by multiple compelling characters and the unlikely connections they all share. There's no real main character because all of the characters are explored in detail, and unlike A Game of Thrones, when I moved on to a different point-of-view character, though I did want to get back to the POV character I'd just finished reading about, I was so caught up in the next POV character's story that I didn't want to skip ahead to get back to the story I found most interesting.
If there was a main character, it would be Vincent, a woman whose life is explored over the course of many years. We see her get wrapped up in a life of wealth and prestige as the wife of a man named Jonathan Alkaitis, whose orchestration of a massive Ponzi scheme provides the event that anchors the entire story. And we see the aftermath of Vincent's life after Alkaitis is arrested and imprisoned. All the way to the story's core mystery, which is, what happened to Vincent when she disappeared from a large shipping freighter out on the ocean?
What I love about Emily St. John Mandel's brand of storytelling is that she focuses on a character, but from multiple characters' perspectives, while also fleshing out those characters as well. Vincent may very well be the main character of the story, but so are all the other characters Mandel fleshes out in exploration of Vincent's life. The structure of the novel is very similar to the structure she used in Station Eleven by exploring the life of actor Arthur Leander from multiple character perspectives and timelines.
Speaking of timelines, Mandel is a master of the non-linear plot. The story jumps forward and backward multiple times, but not in a jarring way. It's all very compelling, and the way she presents the events of the story help to shape the reader perspective in a way that there are some very satisfying payoffs when she shifts to earlier or later times in character's life in the story.
Mandel has referred to The Glass Hotel as a ghost story, but not the traditional ghost story most readers are familiar with. There are, as I heard her say in an interview, multiple ways for a person to be haunted, and this story explores those ways beautifully.
The Glass Hotel was the kind of story I didn't want to end because Mandel's prose and voice are so addictive. I only wish I could craft the kind of story that would impact a reader the way Mandel's last two novels have impacted me.
Review copy was provided by the publisher.
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