The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Wow! Every family has an oddball or two that are often avoided and only seen at the occasional family reunion, but the Berry family is nothing but oddballs, which makes for a hilarious yet tragic story. John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire tells the story of the five Berry children as they follow their father, an irrepressible dreamer, through one failed hotel adventure after another. Along the way, they have to deal with rape, incest, and death as well as terrorists, prostitutes, a few bears, and a dog named Sorrow.

Using tight, direct, and often poetic prose, Irving tells the story through the point of view of John Berry, the middle son. John admits that he is the "least opinionated" of his siblings and so it is up to him to "set the record straight, or nearly straight" about his family's story, but he then admits that his view of the story, at least the parts he was present for, are "colored by the fact that they were up-and-down times, about which [he has] up-and-down opinions." Though John's point of view may be questionable at times, it has a nostalgic quality that is endearing, evoking sympathy from readers as he tells about and deals with his family's tragedies.

In addition to dealing with serious subjects honestly, Irving inserts a bit of metafiction via Lilly Berry (John's younger sister) as John recalls Lilly's struggles with her perceived inadequacies as a writer and the effects of critical reviews.  Irving also manages to poke fun at literature professors and "a certain illiterate kind of college student" who are "relieved to discover that absolute obscurity [is] not only publishable but seemingly identified with seriousness," and that the "obvious failure to be clear [in writing] confirms that what any fool knows is a vice can be rearranged, by art, to resemble a virtue."

Altogether, The Hotel New Hampshire is a beautifully written novel filled with unforgettable characters and ridiculous situations that will make readers laugh and cry--or at least chuckle and then choke up--within the span of a page. 





View all my reviews