#27: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

A decades-old Ponzi scheme collapses, throwing many lives into chaos, from a fading painter to an addicted performance artist to a cargo shipping manager to a bartender turned rich man's girlfriend and more; a woman jumping from a cargo ship, and a message scrawled on a swank hotel's window, bracket the narrative and tie all the storylines together in Emily St. John Mandel's The Glass Hotel.

I recommended Mandel's Station Eleven to everyone a few years ago, and find this follow-up also a literate, rewarding novel for any reader.  Attached to the spine of the story are many interweaving narratives, which showcase, more than anything else, how chance happenstance and random meetings can resonate through a person's life.

There is a magical element to the narrative too, with ghosts--perhaps brought on by guilt and strong memories, perhaps not--and an exploration of alternate histories core parts of the story.  

In fact, careful readers will see several characters from Station Eleven here, positioning the novel as an alternate history version of Station Eleven, in an odd way.   Odd especially in that her previous novel is about a pandemic that wipes out a lot of the population, and this one reflects on what might have happened if that pandemic had been contained.

A worthwhile read that I was looking forward to.  I bought this from Amazon and read it quickly.