The Hotel

The first time I ever attended a writer’s group, a young woman read out a passage from a play in which a rabbit and other assorted animals had a deep and meaningful conversation about very obviously human problems. I imagine it was her way of dealing with issues she couldn’t put into the mouths of people. 

Okay. Fair enough. It was her story. But I kept thinking it would all have made much more sense, and more of an impression, if she had used humans. I, at least, might have understood what she was getting at.

But that’s me. Despite my love of Robert Aickman and Shirley Jackson, I tend to go for the Stephen King approach. Direct. With signposts.

If The Hotel is anything to go by, Daisy Johnson would much rather be in the Aickman and Jackson camp. Kubrick’s The Shining rather than King’s portrait of man giving in to his demons. Suggestion. Allusion. Atmosphere. The dim wisp of half-remembered dreams.

The Hotel was some lovely passages. Some unsettling moments. But it values hints rather than statements. And I would really have loved a vampire or two. Or a coffin rotting in the basement. With the lid being broken open. 

From the inside.