I have been stuck in a trance the past few days, and I have The Glass Hotel to thank for that. I have not often been so captivated by a novel’s world, and the characters’ journeys, as I have with this place and these people. I’m still puzzling over what Ms. Mandel is trying to say with this book, what case she is making. Part of the reason I write reviews is to force myself to dig deeper—there is much to ponder here.

Vincent is the core of the story, although the layers of other characters touching her story, either off-shoots or secondary players, are often quite interesting in their own right. She is a beautiful woman with artistic sensibilities, but little direction or drive. She bartends, taking opportunities that present themselves, as when she takes the bartending job at the “glass hotel”, and later takes Jonathan Alkaitis’ proposition of an easy, fabulously wealthy life and pretend marriage. Jonathan has developed a Ponzi scheme, which in spite of a previous near blow-up, manages to succeed for a couple of decades; he doesn’t share this knowledge with Vincent, but she is sharp enough to know something is not quite right. Vincent’s half brother, Paul, who loses his father when his father gets a neighbor pregnant and leaves his wife, Paul’s mother, leaving Paul to shuttle back and forth between mother and father during his childhood. Vincent, beloved child of this union, loses her mother to an accidental death, but is never quite sure if her adored mother died accidentally or was killed. Paul goes on to drug addiction, but not before he experiences some career success as a composer and musician, using Vincent’s videos as backdrop for his performances, without her permission. Jonathan suffers loss as well, when his beloved brother, a painter of some ability, succumbs to his drug addiction.

So, is Mandel’s point that these three people, each suffering loss at a critically vulnerable time in childhood, also lose their moral compass? By taking an easy way out, are they compensating for heartbreak at a tender age? Looking further, we see that almost every character is willfully blind to their dishonest choices. We jump into the perspectives of several characters, each fully developed with little exposition, and as life choices catch up with each, each sees how they have chosen blindness to personal responsibility. Do we all explain away the impact of our actions on others, justify our choices, while failing to see the pain and destruction we wrought on others?

A quick word about structure: Mandel is very artful without feeling contrived. Her characters are real, and the plot is dreamlike and smart— she is a very skilled writer. This book lives up to the hype— it might be my favorite read of the year.