Women's Hotel

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

Daniel Lavery’s hilarious social satire tracks the lives of a group of quirky women making their way in 1960s New York City. The fictional Biedermeier (modelled after Manhattan’s legendary Barbizon) is a Mad Men–era residential hotel for women. Unfortunately for both occupants and staff, it’s gradually becoming obsolete, and its downturn is starting to show. (When the hotel kitchen stops providing free breakfast, it hits the residents hard.) And that’s only the start of what these models, actors, art students, magazine editors, and others deal with just to get through the day. Lavery tells their tales through vivid vignettes loaded with bone-dry wit, making it feel like fodder for a period sitcom directed by Wes Anderson. Fittingly, narrator Mara Wilson’s gift for droll delivery is just what the desk clerk ordered. This cosmopolitan comedy is as undeniable as it is stylishly understated.