The Lonely Hearts Hotel: A Novel
Feb 2017 · Sold by Penguin
4.9star
8 reviews
Ebook
400
Pages
family_home
Eligible
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About this ebook
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE AND THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post
From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans – in love with each other since they can remember – whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.
The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins. It might also take true love.
Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.
Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city’s underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes – after years of searching and desperate poverty – the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.
With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O’Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.
"So filled with vivid descriptions and complex characters that the reader's experience is virtually cinematic. . . Utterly compelling." – The Washington Post
From the author of When We Lost Our Heads, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans – in love with each other since they can remember – whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.
The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one’s origins. It might also take true love.
Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1914. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.
Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city’s underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes – after years of searching and desperate poverty – the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they’ll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.
With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O’Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.
Ratings and reviews
4.9
8 reviews
Danny Williams
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January 27, 2023
I absolutely adore this book. Usually I don't read books twice but Heather O'Neills writing is so immensly captivating that I restart the book after I finish it. Its the darkest parts of humanity wrapped in the prettiest thing you've ever seen. Though her other books were great, there is just something about Rose and Pierrot that I can't let go of. It feels like a new book every time I read it. Seriously one of my favorite books ever.
Anthony Ingram
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September 14, 2021
This book was absolutely fantastic, I read it a while back and thought it was just amazing. I felt as if the ending was a little rushed but it was fine all together. Would definitely recommend this book to my friends.
Amber Vaughan
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August 13, 2023
Just increíble. Beautiful, heartbreaking , inspiring and often funny. You'll often find yourself smiling. Please read this if you are eccentric, strange, mad, artistic, absurd etc...
About the author
Heather O’Neill is a novelist, poet, short-story writer, screenwriter, and essayist. Lullabies for Little Criminals, her debut novel, was published in 2006 to international critical acclaim and shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. Born and raised in Montreal, O’Neill lives there today with her daughter.
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