help the book avoid melodrama and memorably capture the 'thundering mystery' of marriage and heartbreak.' ― The New Yorker 'This is no Hitchcockian tale of a double life but an insightful portrait of grief’s power to create 'a dislocation of reality.' Mischievous details and winningly bizarre characters. The fantastic plot is elevated by van den Berg’s fantastic writing and unique twists of language. The acclaimed author of two story collections and a novel, van den Berg has always been good, but with The Third Hotel she’s become fantastic ― in every sense of the word. 'There’s Borges and Bolaño, Kafka and Cortázar, Modiano and Murakami, and now Laura van den Berg. Robert Lennon, The New York Times Book Review Read as the inscrutable future cult classic it probably is, and let yourself be carried along by its twisting, unsettling currents.' ― J. There's no denying skill at rendering this material her sentences, at their best, are extraordinarily lucid, lodging places and people indelibly in memory. 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. The Third Hotel is a propulsive, brilliantly shape-shifting novel from an inventive author at the height of her narrative powers. As the distinction between reality and fantasy blurs, Clare finds grounding in memories of her childhood in Florida and of her marriage to Richard, revealing her role in his death and reappearance along the way. Grief-stricken and baffled, Clare tails Richard, a horror film scholar, through the newly tourist-filled streets of Havana, clocking his every move. He’s wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before, and he’s supposed to be dead.

Shortly after Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema, she finds her husband, Richard, standing outside a museum.

In Havana, Cuba, a widow tries to come to terms with her husband’s death―and the truth about their marriage―in Laura van den Berg’s surreal, mystifying story of psychological reflection and metaphysical mystery. Named a Summer 2018 Read by The Washington Post, Vulture, Nylon, Elle, BBC, InStyle, Refinery29, Bustle, O, the Oprah Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Harper's Bazaar, Conde Nast Traveler, Southern Living, Lit Hub, and Vol. Named a Best Book of 2018 by The Boston Globe, Huffington Post, Electric Literature and Lit Hub. 'There’s Borges and Bolaño, Kafka and Cortázar, Modiano and Murakami, and now Laura van den Berg.' ― The Washington Postįinalist for the NYPL Young Lions Award. ' future cult classic.' ― The New York Times Book Review

Laura van den berg the third hotel