WOMEN'S HOTEL

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.