Pink hotel
Riska Jacobs
318 pages. MCD / Farah, Strauss & Giloo. $ 27.
One of the strange elements of human behavior is that much of what we call “vacation” involves endless tinkering with our body temperature. Think about the beach. You lie on a towel, get hot, soak in the sea to cool, go out, reheat yourself, soak, cool, and repeat. The joy of recreation cannot be reduced to the fact that it’s really fun to swirl between the heat and the cold, but on a characteristic vacation moment, snuggle up to a campfire on a cold night and dive into a sultry lake. It is included. In the afternoon, I came out of the snow to warm up with cocoa.
The more luxurious the vacation, the higher the temperature. In Lisca Jacobs’ new novel, Pink Hotel, the characters from the luxurious Beverly Hills facility burn themselves in the three-digit sunshine before heading indoors into an air-conditioned room. Then, shivering, slip into a fluffy robe, walk on the heated marble floor, and remove the chilled champagne from the ice bucket. They adjust their personal thermostats all day long.
At the heart of this vague book are the honeymooners Keith and Kit Collins, who flew south of Sacramento on their honeymoon. Pink Hotel is a light and fictional version of Beverly Hills Hotel with banana leaf wallpaper, poolside cabana and famous souffle. Keith, 27, works as general manager of the Michelin-starred restaurant “Boonville” (literally in the town of Boonville), with his curly hair and good manners. Kit is four years younger, cute and obedient, and is hired as a part-time waitress in the same place.
Kitt believes the couple traveled to Los Angeles to start their marriage, but for Keith, that’s only half of the plan. The other half is to achieve a little covert networking. Two months ago, he met Beaumont, Guest Services Director at Pink Hotel, and is now auditioning for the role of Protégé. Gigging at a hotel with CEOs, Barons of Oil, hedge fund managers, real estate tycoons, and foreign aristocrats will be a big step forward.
The details of luxury hospitality are unattractive. Rolling Beaumont’s position on a degasser reveals a combination of fixers, babysitters, therapists, fall guys, animal care specialists, and janitor. This is especially true the moment Keith and Kit visit. Los Angeles is a summer and the eerie, dry climate makes guests restless. A fire broke out across the boundaries of the hotel and the sky was a haze of brown smoke. City sand particles are carried on a fierce wind on a lush lawn. When Kitt raised safety concerns to Mr. Beaumont, he said the hotel was “invincible” to the catastrophe and sounded like a captain boasting about the inability of certain ships to sink around 1912. Reassure her.
Kit wanders the hotel in awe while Keith embeds staff. She observes the circus of sin and all seven cardinals are represented. Guests complain about their servants, covering their nail polish and teeth with diamonds and feeding each other a golden flaky chocolate truffle. They take a nap, rut and gossip. Kitt and Keith were overwhelmed at first, but soon realized they were adapting to it.
Meanwhile, anxiety continues to dominate the city. Highways have been closed and domestic violence is on the rise. The riot police fire tear gas at a crowd of protesters. The Rodeo Drive storefront has been incinerated. Rather than sticking to the identities of these protesters and the nature of their demands, Jacobs says they shout “EAT THE RICH” and build a guillotine in front of the saxophone store. Outside world news flows into the hotel in the form of flashing across the bar’s television or glancing at the cell phone between the glasses of rosé.
Jacobs is the author of two previous novels, “The Worst Kind of Desire” and “Catarina.” Both are quick, insightful and raw. “The Pink Hotel” repeats relatively enchantingly. This results in a choice of perspective. Jacobs moves fluidly between characters and temporarily descends in one person’s inner soliloquy before moving on to the next person. Clearly doing so is a technical achievement, but it presents the challenges of the story. If the reader is always aware of the intent of all characters, there is less chance of uncertainty or deception (suspense and revelation).
Being captivated by couples and hotel guests also means that we are in a constant stream of glitz. Jacobs has a talent reminiscent of ridiculous images — there is a memorable pet monkey named Norma who wears a sequin harness and defecates freely throughout the hotel grounds — but examples punch as they pile up. Lose Neither Kit nor Keith have experienced what is called an idea. They exist simply as complacency and ignorant avatars.
Jacobs reuses his childhood metaphor to defeat the couple’s naivety. Kit sucks his thumb, receives candies from strangers, and kicks his feet “like a kid in a soda shop.” She is compared twice with a “child with a fever”. Keith is an “uncertain boy” and a “boy”. He is also rampant in zoological references. People flock, scream, howl, howl, behave like “stuffing animals”, have an “animal atmosphere”, make “animal barks”, “size other animals” It behaves like a “deciding animal”. Everyone is a baby and everyone is an animal. The comparison is clear, but a bit confusing. After all, baby helplessness is not a failure of behavior, and animals are not hedonists.
What is lacking in this book is a fresh and revelatory goal. Vulgar materialism, climate change denialism, status insecurity, and rich solipsism are all implicitly condemned, as is misogyny. (When the couple arrives at the hotel, many men praise Keith’s bride’s choice, as if the kit were a sedan.) As the story goes on, we see the couple delusion in a spectacular calculation. Wait for it to collide with. Eventually it will, but Jacobs does not give them the depth to get our sympathy.
