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Content Warning: Discussion of suicide
During training at my first week on the job at a conventions hotel, a returning employee looked up into the atrium and told me that when he worked there years before, a woman jumped from the forty-second floor. He held his huge, manicured hand up and traced her fall. The wires crossing the open space cut her into pieces. Housekeeping cleaned her up after she landed, which sounded, to him, “like a truck hit the building.” All the employees went to counseling afterward.
I didn’t know what to say. What do you say to that? I didn’t ask why, if this was a forty-five floor hotel, she jumped off the forty-second. He did tell me that she was not a guest at the hotel, and no one below had been hurt, which seemed to me like a miracle.
I didn’t work there long. Less than a year. Not just because of that story–I wasn’t even THERE when it happened and I’ll never forget it–but because hotels are disturbing to me. They’re so transient. So clean-seeming. So microcosmic. So, like, empty. It’s so weird to me that there were hundreds of people who worked at that hotel, and yet if they did their jobs WELL, it looked as though they never existed.
Very few people are staying in hotels at this time, because non-essential traveling is mandated to stop. Yet people who are symptomatic are staying there to quarantine themselves from their families. When I heard that the first thing I thought was, when they check out, Who’s going to have to clean that room?
I write all this as an introduction to The Fright Stuff, Book Riot’s weekly newsletter about the latest and greatest in horror. This week’s realm of hell/theme is Hotels, and I’ll be your Virgil through it. (Don’t worry, I’ll tell you about more than The Shining, Rosemary’s Baby, and Psycho.) I’m Mary Kay McBrayer, and with no further ado, let’s go ahead on and check in to our rooms.
Ear worm: “Hotel Yorba” by The White Stripes–“all they got inside is vacancy.”
Fresh Hells (FKA new releases):
The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James
Written in a truly noir style, this new novel combines timelines of past and present into a sort of time-warp that bends itself to the hotel itself. It focuses on the spooky atmosphere and the nature of sleep, and is a well-written, well-received slow burn of a creepshow.
The Return by Rachel Harrison
When one of the friends in a four person clique goes missing without explanation, and then turns up on the front porch a year later, the BFFs’ natural response is, of course, girls’ trip. They book themed rooms at a boutique hotel only to realize, slowly, that the returning friend is… not okay.
Cryptkeepers (FKA horror from the backlist):
The Elvis Room by Stephen Graham Jones
Y’all already know that I love Stephen Graham Jones and his writing with all of my dark cold heart, but listen to this beginning: a mad scientist figures out the controls of the experiment on how to weigh souls (originally conducted in 1901). Then, he ventures to help a woman who is convinced she is being haunted by her dead sister, whom she ate in the womb. I KNOW, RIGHT. Let’s do this!
Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
A word of caution: make sure that when you order this book, you’re ordering the English translation (unless, of course, you speak fluent Spanish). Which I do not. I was drunker than I thought when I pushed the “GIMME IT” button, AKA “add to cart,” and was SUPER disappointed that I had to wait on another version of this collection of short stories to arrive.
I digress. While not all of these stories take place in hotels, as you may have surmised from my introduction, the lives of cleaning women have fascinated me. I know they’re not ghosts. I know that. But I remember as a six-year-old going with my mom to clean new houses after contractors finished construction, and sitting on an overturned bucket in my parka scraping paint off a window with a razor blade, and just being like, no one will ever know that we were here.
I digress again. Get this book, y’all. It’s spooky and realistic and shows a side of the service and hospitality industry that you’ve likely seen, and then likely forgotten.
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo
This novel is a surrealist classic in which Juan Preciado follows his mother’s dying wish to find his father. He travels to his father’s hometown to find a literal ghost town–a town inhabited by ghosts–and while he’s there, he stays at the makeshift bed and breakfast hosted by Ediviges, one of the town’s ghosts, until he’s taken in by the cook at Media Luna. The story unfolds like a dream, and it’s a truly fascinating tale.
No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is the GOAT when it comes to noir and horror, and this western mafia mash-up is no exception. When a Good Ol’ Boy finds two million dollars in a shootout that he stumbles upon in the desert, he goes on the lam, where he’s hunted by both the “prophet of destruction” trying to recover the money, and the old-time sheriff who is trying to save both their lives and their souls. (I truly cannot oversell this book. It’s the dismal tide. If you haven’t read it, go ahead on and do yourself a favor by ordering it from your local indie bookseller. And then live-tweet all your extreme reactions, and make sure you tag me.)
Ring by Kōji Suzuki, translated by Robert B. Rohmer and Glynne Walley
You’re almost definitely familiar with the myriad adaptations of this book, but in case you’re not… here’s the synopsis: a group of teenagers take a vacation to a cabin in the mountains outside Tokyo. While there, they accidentally watch a cursed video tape that haunts them, warning them that unless specified acts are performed, each of them will die in seven days. (To be totally honest, I watched The Ring movie in ninth grade the morning before my dad came to pick me up from a sleepover, and every time our landline rang, I jumped out of my skin.) It’s super scary, especially right now when videos just autoplay through no direction of your own, and we’re just constantly consuming content.
Perfect Days by Raphael Montes, translated by Alison Entrekin
Clarice is a vivacious screenwriter hard at work on Perfect Days, her work in progress about a group of fun-loving kids roadtripping across Brazil. Teo is a friendless recluse who lives with his paraplegic mother and becomes unhealthily obsessed with Clarice, to the point that he kidnaps her and retraces the map of her screenplay, stopping to rest in hotels across Brazil. Kind of makes you NOT want to leave the house… even if we could right now.
Harbingers (News):
Want to learn about the Providence Biltmore, AKA the inspiration for both the Bates Motel and the converted apartment of Rosemary’s Baby? Read here!
Want to learn some ancient alchemy? Check this out.
Lotssss of horror options on the Indie Next List!
Look how delightful these depictions of Riverhead Books’ catalogue are, from artist Steve Powers rendering as a mural in Brooklyn, miniaturist Lorraine Loots’ tiny paintings of each title, and books in blocks.
Check out this historical account of why the bubonic plague doctors iconic uniforms were… the way that they were.
Stephen King says, “I’m sorry,” to everyone who’s said it feels like we’re living in one of his novels.
One of our favorite authors, Carmen Maria Machado, tells us all what she’s been doing during the shut in. And here’s an article about what other authors have been doing to occupy their time.
If you’re busy researching your own horror writing, or just bored to tears, take this virtual tour of medieval murders in London!
Want to hear 5 Books about Horror to Help You Cope with Anxiety? Click here.
And how about learning 4 Folkloric Creatures We Need to Make Horror Movies about Rather than W*ndigos? Don’t mind if I do!
And if you’re wondering how to make good habits, you can learn about the supreme discipline of one of the masters, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, here. Although he’s more known for his literary works, SEVERAL of his books are ALSO horror (you can check the backlist of this newsletter to see about them).
Check out Book Riot’s COVID-19 updates, too!
That’s it for hotels and horror. For now. Until next week, follow me @mkmcbrayer for minute-to-minute horrors or if you want to ask for a particular theme to a newsletter. I’m also on IG @marykaymcbrayer. Enjoy reading about these hotels from the safety of your own home, and I’ll talk to y’all next week!
Your Virgil,
Mary Kay McBrayer
Co-host of Book Riot’s literary fiction podcast, Novel Gazing