Third Hotel (van den Berg)

The Third Hotel 
Laura van den Berg, 2018
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
224 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780374168353


Summary
In Havana, Cuba, a widow tries to come to terms with her husband’s death—and the truth about their marriage—in Laura van den Berg’s surreal, mystifying story of psychological reflection and metaphysical mystery.

Shortly after Clare arrives in Havana, Cuba, to attend the annual Festival of New Latin American Cinema, she finds her husband, Richard, standing outside a museum.

He’s wearing a white linen suit she’s never seen before, and he’s supposed to be dead.

Grief-stricken and baffled, Clare tails Richard, a horror film scholar, through the newly tourist-filled streets of Havana, clocking his every move.

As the distinction between reality and fantasy blurs, Clare finds grounding in memories of her childhood in Florida and of her marriage to Richard, revealing her role in his death and reappearance along the way.

The Third Hotel is a propulsive, brilliantly shape-shifting novel from an inventive author at the height of her narrative powers. (From the publisher.)