A Small Hotel by Robert Olen Butler is a small novel that takes place in present time over a 12 hour period but goes back over a twenty year marriage. The day the divorce is to be finalized, Kelly Hays skips the trip to the courthouse and drives instead to New Orleans to the special place she and her estranged husband, Micheal, shared. The author moves back and forth in time weaving the story of this marriage in which two people struggle to find ways and the words to express love.
The novel has a wonderful sense of place. I felt taken to New Orleans and the sites and sounds of the French Quarter. I could smell, hear and taste the distinct qualitites that makes New Orleans such a rare place. I could feel the Olivier House Hotel and intimacy this place gives travelers even in the midst of Mardi Gras.
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