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Women's Hotel Summary & Study Guide Description
Women's Hotel Summary & Study Guide includes comprehensive information and analysis to help you understand the book. This study guide contains the following sections:
This detailed literature summary also contains Quotes and a Free Quiz on Women's Hotel by Daniel M. Lavery.
The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Lavery, Daniel M. Women's Hotel. HarperCollins, 2024.
Daniel M. Lavery's novel Women's Hotel is set in 1960s New York City. The novel is written in the past tense and told from the third person point of view. However, Lavery subverts conventional notions of linearity throughout the narrative. For the sake of clarity, this guide relies upon the present tense and a more streamlined mode of explanation.
One summer in 1960s Manhattan, Mrs. Mossler discovers that the Biedermeier women's hotel she manages can no longer afford to serve the residents breakfast. Mrs. Mossler is upset by this change as she personally designed the meal and service over 30 years prior. Before coming to the Biedermeier, Mrs. Mossler briefly ran a teahouse, which shut less than two years after opening. At the Biedermeier, Mrs. Mossler has tried to grant her tenants the class, ease, and elegance she sought at her teahouse.
Mrs. Mossler's right-hand floor manager Katherine Heap starts to hear complaints about the loss of the breakfast. Katherine passes these complaints to Mrs. Mossler, but there is nothing she can do to reinstate the service. Katherine lets the matter go, although she is sorry that the girls have to spend more money, forego the meal, or steal food from the cafeteria.
Katherine has lived and worked at the Biedermeier for nine years. Before moving to New York, Katherine was living in her hometown of Westerville, Ohio. When she was 17, she developed a drinking habit. She started getting drunk often and hurting herself. She ended up hospitalized, but her parents did little to help her. After a third stint in the hospital, Katherine started attending AA. Eventually she decided to leave Westerville to distance herself from her family and start over.
One Sunday, Katherine attends church. Throughout the service, her mind wanders to her life in Westerville. She still sometimes feels ashamed of her past but is also glad for her life in Manhattan.
Then one day, two new girls move into the Biedermeier: Ruth and Gia. While Gia has come to the city to court and marry her mother's ex-beau, Ruth is in the city to become a beautician. Katherine sympathizes with Ruth and lets her style and cut her hair one night for practice. Everyone is horrified to see how poorly Ruth has done the job. Ruth is devastated and soon loses her one job offer at a local salon.
Over the following weeks, Ruth struggles to find work. Finally she appeals to Mrs. Mossler, asking for housekeeping work at the Biedermeier. She starts cleaning under a trial period, but the other residents are skeptical of her work and manner. One resident named Carol is particularly disturbed when Ruth lets herself into her room while she and her boyfriend Bryan are having sex. Ruth tries to be polite, but does not understand why Carol is upset. Over the days following, she starts running into Bryan more often. She is grateful that he talks to her, because she has been unable to make any friends in the city. Meanwhile, she is still out of work and does not know how to support herself.
Then one day, the elderly J.D. panics when the stray cat she adopted goes missing. She calls Mrs. Mossler and the other residents into her room to help her find the cat. Convinced the cat is in Ruth's neighboring room, she begs Mrs. Mossler to open Ruth's door. All of the other residents follow Mrs. Mossler inside, horrified by the mess Ruth has made. They are even more surprised when Ruth emerges out from under the bed and they discover that she has trapped the cat in a basket on the fire escape. When Bryan opens the basket, Ruth gets upset, lunges at him, and throws him, the cat, and herself out the window. They fall two floors, but survive. Afterwards, Ruth is put into state care.
By the summer's end, Mrs. Mossler has decided to retire. She passes her duties on to Katherine. The Biedermeier survives for another few years. However, within the decade, all of the women's hotels in New York are gone.
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This section contains 702 words (approx. 2 pages at 400 words per page) |
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