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ridgewaygirl 's review for:
Travelers Rest
by Keith Lee Morris
A small family is driving from Seattle, where they picked up Uncle Robbie from rehab, back to South Carolina. They hit a snowstorm in Idaho and pull off the interstate to spend the night in a hotel. The Travelers Rest is a grand old place, currently being renovated and the only person they meet inside is the elderly owner. Quickly things start to go wrong.
Keith Lee Morris's book starts out as a novel about the Addison family; the fractures in their relationships highlighted by the presence of Tonio's little brother, the guy who is ambivalent about living near his disapproving sibling, while being attracted to his wife. The novel quickly changes though, once they reach the isolated mountain town with its decaying hotel, into what first looks like a horror novel, and it kind of is, but not in any traditional way, as the hotel rapidly separates each family member from the others. Tonio is stuck in an endless cycle of looking for his wife in the snowstorm and sitting in a parlor with the hotel owner. His wife is trapped in a room, but not that unhappy about it. His brother thinks he's left to go drinking as a choice he made, but with each passing day, he finds himself with less and less agency. And Tonio's son is left alone in an empty, unheated hotel, being fed by the owners of the diner across the street, who may understand his situation a lot better than he thinks.
This is a novel that starts strong and seems to be going in a specific direction, but then turns into something entirely different. This is an odd book. With every character isolated from the others, it turns into several different stories running in parallel. It also takes its time, meandering along as each character remains stuck. Two things kept me reading; the quality of the writing and the story of the boy, the one person still out in the world able to make decisions and try to find his family.
Keith Lee Morris's book starts out as a novel about the Addison family; the fractures in their relationships highlighted by the presence of Tonio's little brother, the guy who is ambivalent about living near his disapproving sibling, while being attracted to his wife. The novel quickly changes though, once they reach the isolated mountain town with its decaying hotel, into what first looks like a horror novel, and it kind of is, but not in any traditional way, as the hotel rapidly separates each family member from the others. Tonio is stuck in an endless cycle of looking for his wife in the snowstorm and sitting in a parlor with the hotel owner. His wife is trapped in a room, but not that unhappy about it. His brother thinks he's left to go drinking as a choice he made, but with each passing day, he finds himself with less and less agency. And Tonio's son is left alone in an empty, unheated hotel, being fed by the owners of the diner across the street, who may understand his situation a lot better than he thinks.
This is a novel that starts strong and seems to be going in a specific direction, but then turns into something entirely different. This is an odd book. With every character isolated from the others, it turns into several different stories running in parallel. It also takes its time, meandering along as each character remains stuck. Two things kept me reading; the quality of the writing and the story of the boy, the one person still out in the world able to make decisions and try to find his family.