I bought this book from Sapna Book Stores years back but for some reason could not read it despite trying. This book was a part of my Dad's collection of books but at the time I was too young to read such a book when I first saw it and when I was old enough to read, we had to get rid of it due to termite infestation in the cupboard where the book was shelved.
This is my third-ish Arthur Hailey book. The first one being Runway Zero-Eight, written in collaboration with John Castle and the second one was Strong Medicine. I loved both those books. What I have observed about Hailey, is that he chooses a particular industry and does a thorough and in-depth study of it and then comes up with a brilliant book with a fictitious story spun around it.
In Strong Medicine, he wrote about the pharmaceuticals industry and in this one, he wrote about the Hotel/Hospitality industry.
This book is about an independent hotel in New Orleans called St. Gregory's owned by an old fashioned man, neck-deep in debt, called Warren Trent. The main character is the hotel manager, Peter McDermott. Several parallel story lines, each of which touches up on one aspect or other in the industry run through the book. There are several characters in the book as hotel staff or guests but it never creates any kind of confusion as the characters are developed beautifully with each one having a unique trait about them. If I write about each of the story lines or characters, this blog would be insufferably long. So, I strongly recommend that you read the book. However, I will touch upon very very briefly on some of the themes of those story lines.
- Hotel theft
- Conventions organised in hotel
- Which areas actually contribute toward the hotels finance
- What it is like when Royal families come to stay at a hotel
- How the wealthy exert their influence and position in society
- Corrupt hotel staff
- What hotels do in event of medical emergencies/crisis
- How hotels get taken over
- Equipment malfunction in hotel
- Racial segregation which was more common in the time when book was written
- A hit and run case investigation
What I liked about the book is the fact that the author hardly left any area of hotel operations unexplored. While focussing on the aspects of hotels which all of us are more or less aware of or is generally quite visible, he did not forget the smaller aspects such as how the wake-up call service at the hotels work, what happens to the garbage collected at the hotel, what are the consequences of a losing hotel keycards or throwing them mindlessly in the bin, what the struggles in the kitchen are, what privileges do certain hotel employees benefit from, how room service and housekeeping works etc. He has managed to beautifully link them all up into several engaging stories which somehow come together brilliantly in the book.
My favourite character in the book is the central one- Peter McDermott. He is a very likeable and ideal character- straightforward, honest, brilliant at what he does, very committed and dedicated, hard working, puts humanity above all else and last but not the least, superbly intelligent and knowledgeable, not to mention well-respected by all employees and several guests too.
As you already know by now, I love books in which food is described really well. One of the most visible features of any hotel is the restaurants and food and Arthur Hailey surely has not be thrifty in his descriptions of food. He has really been nifty with his words especially while describing food. You almost feel like the food has been laid out before you.
The language is moderate and the book is quick paced and not too difficult to read, not too simple either, and one of the most insightful books about hotel operations I have ever read. You must have figured out by now how much I loved the book. The only thing that I did not like about it is the fact that it ended and that there is no sequel, even though the writer ended the book on such a note that there could be easily one. Sorry this is probably not the kind of review you would be expecting to read but this is the best I could do without making the blogpost longer.
I rate this book- 5/5.
