What a lovely novel! In Joyce Maynard’s The Bird Hotel, American Irene suffers multiple tragic losses from childhood into young adulthood. Numb with grief and believing happiness will never find her, wanting only to disappear, she makes a series of questionable but colorful transportation choices and ends up in Central America. Arriving with no money, she is welcomed at a lakeside hotel that has seen better days.
The hotel owner senses this lost soul’s sorrowful despair and does not press her for details. Instead, she tells Irene her own stories. She has led a fascinating life. Soon her stories morph into Irene’s own stories of her new life in this hotel near a small village. Many of the stories are human interest in nature, but many more are personal to Irene. She learns to ride new waves of love and loss with equanimity. Irene’s situation is cross-cultural. She and the villagers speak different languages, but she always finds common ground in their humanity.
Maynard presents villagers and hotel staff and guests with such warmth, I grew to care about some. And oh, did I love Irene’s simple, generous heart. This novel is not just a relaxing tea in the lush gardens of the hotel, however; plenty of high drama happens. And Irene never fails to inspire. The Bird Hotel is a true beauty from ashes story, the best novel I've read in a long time.
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