Summary of Hotel du Lac
Edith Hope, an English writer of romance novels, spends the off-season at a hotel on Lake Geneva. Her friends have arranged the stay, believing that she should spend some time away from home after causing a scandal on her wedding day. At the hotel, Edith drafts letters to her lover, tries to finish her next novel and observes the other guests. Most are women, somewhat to her disappointment, but there is also the self-assured Mr Neville, who believes he has the solution to Edith’s problems.
Reasons to read Hotel du Lac
Hotel du Lac is a quiet novel about love, loneliness and the expectations placed on women, set in an old-fashioned Swiss hotel. The novel was the unexpected winner of the 1984 Booker Prize, defeating favourites including J. G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, and became a bestseller. Anita Brookner, a British novelist and art historian, had made her fiction debut only three years earlier, at the age of 53.
Setting: Vevey, Lake Geneva (Switzerland)
Hotel du Lac is set on the north-eastern shore of Lake Geneva. Although the town is not explicitly identified, the setting may have been inspired by Vevey, where there is a Grand Hôtel du Lac.
Original title: Hotel du Lac
Year of publication: 1984
Nr of pages: 192
