Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)When you live by the imagination, as writers do, where can you turn when the words dry up? If you're Jonathan Peabody, no amount of will can make the creative juices flow again. That requires a descent into a kind of madness presaged in Outland Hotel's vivid prologue -- a psychosexual tour de force best described as David Lynch meets William Burroughs.
Clearly, it is the author's eye as a film director that gives the story its cinematic quality, often absent in modern novels. And yet the prose isn't lacking, either. There are turns of phrase in Outland Hotel that literally took my breath away, either because they were utterly lovely, or else packed a punch to the stomach.
After the novel's disturbing prologue, we land along with Jonathan in some bizarre old hotel reminiscent of The Shining. Is this place even real? At first we're not sure. In short order, though, the symbolic aspects of the story come to the fore. And this is what made Outland Hotel unlike anything I'd read before. Even though one begins to suspect the hero is acting in the realm of the unconscious, or the imagination, this in no way lessens the suspense.
Because, as most visitors (even occasional ones) to the unconscious already know, the imagination is not an idyllic place filled with fairies and unicorns, where works of art are mined whole and brought back up to the light, with fame and fortune not far behind. No, the unconscious is full of horrors and ugly truths about ourselves we'd rather not face.
From the somewhat more commonplace concerns, like wrestling with his bisexuality, or just longing for a break from adult responsibility, to the deeper existential horrors that await Jonathan at the hotel's mysterious banquet, we accompany him on his journey with equal measures of curiosity and terror.
As the story speeds towards its not-at-all-obvious conclusion, the question becomes: Having arrived by uncertain paths, will Jonathan ever escape this place? And if so, how?
The answers may surprise you, as they did me.
I'd highly recommend this novel to those who like their storylines fresh and unexpected (and seasoned with the macabre).
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A lone traveler arrves at the Outland Hotel carrying a prized edition of John Milton's "Paradise Lost."Disoriented, he covers his wedding band before signing in at the register, only he can't remember his name.He is none other than JONATHAN PEABODY; bisexual sophomore novelist, henpecked husband, and distressed father, who has tumbled through the portal of a recurring nightmare in which sexual rampages dominate his dreams.He soon meets JEOFF, a manic and gluttonous hotel resident who takes Jonathan under wing, promising him an invitation to the hotel's exclusive and illustrious banquet.As Jonathan stumbles through the night he is joined by his wife, HELEN, and two children, and he slowly realizes his newfound retreat is more bizarre and sinister than he can possibly imagine...Previously published as "The Peabody Millennium," this version features the original text plus the author's original screenplay.
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