Cathy’s Corner: The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel

This  very atmospheric book is a spin-off of one of Mandel’s earlier novels, The Sea of Tranquillity, in which a minor character, Vincent, (female, btw) disappears off stage in a very intriguing way, so it was particularly satisfying to have a whole novel dedicated to her story.

I listened to both books, so please forgive spelling errors in the characters’ names.

I loved both books for their atmosphere, and for the precise, almost surgical analysis of each characters’ thought processes and feelings in very tense situations.

In The Glass Hotel, Vincent, now the central character, becomes the trophy girlfriend of a super-rich financier, Jonathan Alkaitis, whose entire fortune is built on a Ponzi scheme. This drew me in for a number of reasons. Firstly, Vincent is too good to be anyone’s trophy anything. Why would someone intelligent and talented be satisfied with a shallow existence of pool-dipping, shopping and socialising with people she doesn’t like to be at the beck and call of a man she doesn’t love? In a variety of ways, Mandel makes it plausible. She describes a place called ‘The Country of Money’, where money is so plentiful that it is not necessary to even think about it. Vincent, for various reasons, is comforted by that freedom. She doesn’t bother looking at price tags. She never sees the bills, as her credit cards are settled by her lover’s ‘people’.

The book resonated with me – not that I’ve ever been anyone’s trophy girlfriend – but I used to work for a firm that was wiped out by a sizeable investment with Bernie Madoff. I’d left the company by then, but the fallout for my former colleagues was devastating. Madoff had enjoyed a decade or more of a rising bull market. The 2008 credit crunch resulted in investors suddenly wanting their money back to cover losses in other parts of their portfolios, with the inevitable exposure of the pyramid scheme. When the tide goes out, you can see who’s swimming naked. For those who don’t know, the Madoff fraud resulted in financial ruin and disgrace for plenty, and some investors took their own lives. Madoff’s own son committed suicide, and he himself died in prison in 2021.

Vincent is not party to the fraud, and when it emerges, she reacts in a very satisfying way, even if only momentarily:

I’m paraphrasing, as I don’t have the book to hand:

                  Jonathan:           ‘Vincent, do you know what a Ponzi scheme is?’

                  Vincent:               ‘Yes, I do.’

                  Claire: (Jonathan’s daughter): ‘How would you know that unless you were involved yourself? You must have been helping him, you…’ [insulting epithet to the effect that she’s a no-good, low down, gold-digging bitch]

                  Vincent: ‘I know what a Ponzi scheme is because I’m not a fucking idiot.’

What I particularly enjoyed is the way in which Mandel describes in realistic detail the way in which a legitimate business can descend into fraud and how hitherto honest people can sleepwalk into becoming criminal, how each of them had their own unique turning point, beyond which it was almost impossible to draw back.

Again, I’m paraphrasing: One of Jonathan’s employees asks one of her colleagues: ‘How did he choose us? Did he look at me and think, That woman seems to have a very conveniently absent moral compass. I think I’ll hire her.’

The novel is not just a story. It’s a meditation on loss, grief, regret, misappropriation (of ideas as well as of money) and lost chances. It also delves into the art world of the 70s and 80s, and is a beautiful reflection on the creation of art and the highly nebulous variables that contribute to its value, both intrinsic and financial.

A very thought-provoking, atmospheric and all-over satisfyingly great read, or in my case, a great listen (if ‘listen’ can be employed as a verb). The audiobook is beautifully narrated by Dylan Moore.