In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel
A Novel
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the Vermont Book Awards
A young mother finds herself caught between a love affair and the wrath of her husband, who will do anything to put an end to it—even use his wife's bipolar diagnosis against her
When faced with newfound feelings for Theo, the drummer of her band, married young mother Portia must decide whether to follow her heart or question her sanity. Going off her medication feels like waking up for the first time. But could this clarity be harmless daydreaming, or a symptom of something more serious?
Portia’s husband, a well-respected prosecutor in their small Vermont town, is convinced of the latter. He retaliates, initiating an intervention, claiming that Portia’s behavior is proof of her bipolar disorder. With lawyer-like cunning, he uses elements from her past to break her resolve until she agrees to being committed to a psychiatric hospital. In the hospital, Portia’s sense of reality is tested, and hard truths about her marriage, her love for Theo, and her most vulnerable hopes and desires are revealed.
In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel is a potent and at times devastating story of stark tenderness. Written like a dream, this novel brings us toward new understandings of the flawed, yearning, multifaceted self.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Plunkett's perceptive debut novel, a young mother and musician struggles with bipolar disorder and her controlling husband. Portia Elby is 20 years old and a recent college dropout when she's first admitted to a psychiatric hospital. After she's discharged, and still wearing the hospital's plastic ID bracelets, she meets Nathan, a prosecutor 11 years her senior, who initially seems fascinated by the "young and troubled" woman. Their relationship progresses to marriage and pregnancy within a few years, and Portia, whose rock group Poor Alice has developed a "small following" in Vermont, tries to balance motherhood and marriage with the "sacred" intimacy of being in a band. Nathan grows increasingly bothered by Portia's need for affection and her tendency to daydream, and his frustration culminates when he finds out she's stopped taking her bipolar medication because she's worried it's stifling her creativity—and has started an affair with Theo, the band's drummer. Short, intense chapters reflect Portia's mental state and preoccupation with finding what she really wants out of life ("Sometimes I feel like I have to choose myself again every day. From scratch"), and the story's momentum dwindles and surges along with her moods. It adds up to an incisive portrait of mental health and the search for autonomy.
