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Start giftingThe Invisible Hotel
A Novel
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Narrator
Jessie Baek
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Length
9 hours 7 minutes
Language
English
Summary
A work of literary horror in the gothic tradition, The Invisible Hotel is a startling, speculative tale of political and ideological adolescence in the long afterlife of the Korean War.
Yewon dreams of a hotel. In the hotel, there are infinite keys to infinite rooms—and a quiet terror she is desperate to escape. When Yewon wakes, she sees her life: a young woman, out of her job at a convenience store, trapped in the tiny South Korean village of her birth, watching her mother wash the bones of their ancestors in their decrepit bathtub. Every house has them, these rotting and fragmented bones, reminders of what they have all lost to a war that never seems to end. Yewon and her siblings were born in this bathtub—and every year women give birth to new babies in the bathtub.
Now, Yewon’s brother is stationed near the North Korean border, her sister has just undergone a life-changing tragedy, and her mother is constantly worried, her health declining. In crisis and in stasis, Yewon’s dreams of the decrepit hotel lead her to an unsettling truth about her country’s collective heritage.
Recalling international trailblazers like Han Kang’s The Vegetarian and Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, The Invisible Hotel marks the arrival of a singular new voice with a sharp social acumen.
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Reviews
"The Invisible Hotel wrestles artfully with big, vital questions: how do we honor and care for our elders without reinforcing a cycle of generational trauma? How do we forge new, joyful paths without indulging in mass cultural amnesia or closing our eyes to a world on fire? That it does so in a surreal, riveting, keep-the-lights-on masterwork of horror is all the more extraordinary. I will be haunted by this book for years to come." —Kim Fu, author of Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century"How does a war play out in a person, a family, and through generations? The Invisible Hotel asks this ambitious and heartbreaking question. In prose that is sharp, clear and startling, Yeji Y. Ham articulates the struggle to navigate trauma, and find joy, in the aftermath of the Korean War. This book is spectacular—a horror story made into art by way of unsettling truths." —Claire Cameron, author of The Last Neanderthal and The Bear
"Yeji Y. Ham’s The Invisible Hotel is an absolute fever dream—a book that explores, with haunted grace and magical wildness, the inescapable ghosts of a fractured, heartbroken country, and one woman’s relentless quest to rush headlong into the labyrinths and mysteries that make up her family. What a thrill to read this: propulsive, electric, full of fury and ecstatic writing, you won’t be able to put this one down." —Paul Yoon, author of The Hive and the Honey
"Extraordinary. Haunting, compulsive, stylish—as original a debut as you’d ever hope to read." —Anna Metcalfe, author of Chrysalis
“The Invisible Hotel traps us in a haunting labyrinth where the wounds of war gape open, bones tether, and the bond of family may be the one key to set us free. Yeji Y. Ham has crafted a luminously spellbinding narrative, knitting history, grief, and love to explore the knots that tie a family and a country.” –Gerardo Samano Cordova, author of Montsrilio
"This ethereal debut novel, at once a horror story and a bird’s bone-delicate exploration of trauma, is filled with ghosts. . . . An intriguing debut—not a story of war, but of a nightmarish visit to its echo chamber." —Kirkus Reviews
"If you’ve never heard of Yeji Y. Ham, that’s about to change in a hurry. . . . At turns beautiful and disturbing, The Invisible Hotel is a haunting exploration of our regrets about the things left unspoken with loved ones—and how we fill absences in our lives. A novel that’s hard to put down, it’s sure to linger once finished." —British Columbia Review
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