Voices from the Blue Hotel

Book excerpt: Each told by a different troubled narrator, the ten stories in Voices from the Blue Hotel hit emotion head on. They strike the deepest, most troubling emotions, the ones it's impossible to resolve or restrain, the ones that arise mysteriously, linger obnoxiously, and dissipate with excruciating slowness-except that these stories never allow their characters to shake the emotions off. Instead the characters-and stories-pursue their feelings to the nth degree. Children are haunted by the plagues visiting their home one summer. A woman grieves the twin sister she lost as a child and falls in love with a man who will never love her. A musician wanders the streets of Paris searching for and mourning his girlfriend, who may be dead-or may simply have left him forever. Overcome with jealousy, a young woman murders her brother's male lover. A mountain climber retires to the mid-west and aches to reconnect with the family he also disdains. An elderly New Yorker moves to the desert of southern California, where she suddenly and unexpectedly experiences joy. In these stories, feelings sneak up on the characters, leave them stunned and struggling to figure out what's hit them.