The Enders Hotel: A Memoir

by Brandon R. Schrand

In the center of the rural boomtown of Soda Springs, Idaho, stands the historic Enders Hotel, Café, and Bar, a three-story brick building that has been many things to many people. But to one family who bought it as an attempt to renew themselves it was home, a place they desperately tried to hold on to and yet, after seventeen years of living there, the very place from which they wanted to escape.

 

Growing up under its leaking roof, Brandon R. Schrand watched a cast of broken characters pass through the hotel doors—an alcoholic artist, a forgotten boxing champ, an ex-con, a homeless family—and tried to find his own identity among those revolving faces. Haunted by a father he had never seen, he tested the faces of those drifters for familiarity. Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, The Enders Hotel reveals the promises and warnings of western boomtown life—stories of alcoholism, murder, betrayal, hope, and finally, redemption.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

230 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Brandon R. Schrand is the author of The Enders Hotel: A Memoir (forthcoming University of Nebraska Press), which won the 2007 River Teeth Prize for Literary Nonfiction, and is a 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers summer selection. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the Dallas Morning News, The Utne Reader, Tin House, Shenandoah, Colorado Review, Green Mountains Review, River Teeth, Ecotone, Oklahoma Review, Isotope, and numerous other publications. He has won the Wallace Stegner Prize, the 2006 Willard R. Espy Award, two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions, and his essay, The Enders Hotel, the title piece from his memoir, was a notable essay in the Best American Essays 2007. He lives in Moscow, Idaho with his wife and two children where he coordinates the MFA Program in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho. Visit him online at www.brandonrschrand.com.

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Reviews

[Chazzbot · Rating 4 out of 5]

The goal of this memoir is not to assign meaning to a life lived, nor to tie up the events and experiences one has had in a pretty package. Life is rough and unformed, and so are many of the stories that Schrand has to tell. What places this memoir above many others is Schrand's patient, elegiac prose for a very unique place and the wandering, often lost, people ("enders," as Schrand describes them) who entered its doors.

Schrand also captures the aimlessness of life as a teenage boy in a small Western town, and does not shy away from the consequences of his boredom. Another of Schrand's admirable traits is his brutally honest eye. He sees how people unconsciously wound each other, he sees the love behind simple words or acts of kindness, and he recognizes how the lives we lead are largely shaped by those who came before us.

Schrand's memoir combines two memorable components: the people (friends, family, strangers) he encounters, and the place (the hotel of the title) where they all came together. Schrand's love for the Enders is made clear in each descriptive passage, in the way he unlocks the hidden rooms of the hotel for the reader to enter, and the way he describes the daily tedium of maintaining it as a place in which locals and drifters alike can find some brief comfort.

The chapters of this memoir themselves serve as rooms where one may enter and stay for awhile, or just look in briefly before moving on down the hall. In its organization and careful construction, Schrand's memoir echoes the rooms, windows and, most important, the people who inhabited this time and place. By the end of this powerful book, you will not forget the Enders Hotel or the people who lived there.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This memoir features stories from Schrand's childhood spent living and working at his family-owned hotel/bar/cafe in a small town in Idaho. Schrand perfectly captures small town life, a dysfunctional family, and the colorful patrons of the Enders Hotel. The stories are simple on the surface but expertly written, drawing thorough pictures for the reader his emotions and experiences without resorting to over-flowery prose. If you enjoyed reading "Toast" by Nigel Slater, you'll love this American version.

[DeAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars out of 5. A coming of age, story of boyhood and small town life in southeastern Idaho (I read it for my Travel through Books challenge). The author describes his hometown's character & culture as summed up in two words, "Monsanto and Mormonism." There is not so much a plot as just a collection of stories of people he encountered as he lived and worked in the Enders Hotel throughout his childhood, with his grandparents the owners. The story is set in the 1980s as the author describes eating meals in the hotel cafe. The hotel is a cheaper one that transients might sometimes work in the hotel in exchange for a place to stay.

I had no real problem with the story, it just was not written for me. Stories of what bored boys do in rural areas don't really grab me because I can't relate. The things they did for fun were hunting, fishing, trapping, shooting guns. And weird adolescent boy stuff. I did like the writing and it offered insight to a place unfamiliar to me.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked this up as part of our Library's Readers Dozen yearly challenge. Schrand is about my age and grew up just south of me, so it was fascinating to see how our experiences might have been similar. I loved his tales of living in the small town hotel - meeting new guests, interacting with regulars and staff, dealing with his family.

[Carol Rizzardi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting memoir that provides insight into the lives of people who live in rural Idaho.

[Karrea Kolb · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my latest little free library find. Takes place in Soda Springs, Idaho and is about the author's life. His grandparents owned the Enders Hotel while he was growing up.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up because I worked for the Caribou National Forest when the Ender's Hotel was leased for the YCC program. I was interested in the hotel's history, about which the author wrote wonderfully. I visited the hotel while working in Pocatello for the FS and so I was able to visualize the hotel and its surroundings while I read. The book is about Brandon Schrand's coming of age while living in the Enders. It was also about the people who had come and gone as residents at the hotel, about his family as they struggled to break the chain of alcoholism from one generation to the other. The author told of the drifters, the down and out traveling families looking for somewhere to start a new life, those who had no money but were trying to get home, and the local people who, when they had no where else to go, stayed at the Enders. The author's family who ran the hotel would take them in and help them. If they had no money, they were allowed to work for room and board. This all was written very well by an Idaho author who works now at the University of Idaho as coordinator for MFA coor in creative writing. The book won the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Price.

[Betsy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is good but the interest in this will be limited. I've revised my views on this book after picking it up again and finishing it. While I still think that interest may be limited, I think the writing is lovely, at times lyrical. It reads like fiction, which I mean in the nicest possible way! Schrand's story of growing up in a small-town hotel among drifters, ex-cons, murderers and alcoholics is quite engaging. It's more episodic than most fiction titles would be yet it really sucks you in. Certain scenes such as finding the passed out or dead man on the stairs or the man with the gun at the lobby pay phone or tearing up the laundromat for the change in the coin boxes were very visual. There was also a certain wistfulness about a time and place fast disappearing from the American landscape.

[Susanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was told that this was a great memoir by Mary Blew and Ladette Randolph, writers themselves, and they were right. It is the story of a young boy growing up in a small Idaho town in the hotel owned by his grandparents. What makes this memoir memorable is that it doesn't focus on his dysfunctional family (reformed alcoholics) but in the everyday incidents of a young boy and the people he meets in the hotel. And it has a happy ending although he never meets his real father. The best part, however, is that his experiences are so unique, but Schrand makes them universal. We are all touched by the people that enter and leave our lives, and we are all searching for something--that we sometimes never find. Beautiful, sparkling prose that in itself made the read worthwhile. Wish I could write like that!

[Tracey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adult nonfiction/memoir. Brandon Schrand writes beautifully about his adventures growing up in a run-down hotel with his grandparents. Former boom town Soda Springs is not what it once was, and his family kindly takes in all sorts of people who are down on their luck, allowing them to barter or work for a few days' shelter. Thus it is that Brandon meets drifter after drifter after drifter after drifter...

This narrative isn't uninteresting, but lacks a plot--the characters never hang around long enough to make much trouble--and thus the book grows tedious after a while. I didn't finish it, but skimmed the last half and read bits of the end. I do not, at this point, have a very high opinion of the river teeth literary nonfiction prize, whatever that is.

[Jeannette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given that this was the final selection for a short book discussion group, I expected it to be like most of the others: mediocre, at best or downright boring. Instead, I loved it. Schrand's use of humor and language made the book an enjoyable read, and his casting of the Hotel itself as another character in his life was memorable. As for his human characters, they truly are characters, filled with nuance, flaws, and bravado, which Schrand uses to highlight his own developing persona. And, since I'm new to Idaho, I enjoyed the perspective of someone who spent his entire life in this state. My only disappointment was in finding that Schrand hasn't written any other books. Brandon Schrand, if you read this, please write another. You are good enough to do so.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I stayed up late last night reading The Enders Hotel in one night and absolutely loved it. In fact, it's the best nonfiction book I've read all year. It's a tiny little book that packs a wallop. The author tells stories of growing up in a hotel, but it's quite the coming-of-age story. His hotel is full of drifters, ex-cons, and people down on their luck, while his grandparents are amazing people. His family has alcohol problems and AA and bad drunks play an important part in the memoir. I loved the scene where he smoked tea (instead of weed) and his own dealings with anger management. It's just a darn good book in my opinion.

[Kristen Glenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir was intriguing when I first saw it. Our small town library used it as the first book for a book club discussion. I picked it up and mostly loved reading (for the first 2/3) about this boy's experiences in Soda Springs--a place close to my home. Having grown up in a small town myself in a family business, I related to some of the reader's experiences. I enjoyed many moments of nostalgia until the last 1/3 of the book. The book got harsher as the main character grew up. I suppose I was not ready for the harshness since I was enjoying the nostalgia. The writing was well done. I just had to skim read the last 70 pages because I lost interest and the nostalgia dream.

[Gregg · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for a good memoir of boyhood (maybe because I wrote one-please look for it), and this is one. The Enders Hotel is the author's story of growing up in a hotel in Idaho owned and operated by his grandparents.
How would you like to order every meal of your childhood off a restaurant menu and never have to do the dishes? Most of the usual boy stuff is here; animals, drug experimentation, best friends and enemies. An interesting story well told.

[Suzy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This memoir is written by a man who grew up just down the road from Jackson, WY in the small town of Soda Springs, Idaho. Maybe you've passed it on your way to Lava Hot Springs? Many people traveling through town used to end up at the Enders Hotel. This book relates a young boy's childhood and teenage years observing the people coming and going at his family's hotel. This is a quick paced book, with many stories about western life, mountain men, alcoholism, transients, and guns.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schrand's writing is wonderful in this collection of stories about his childhood. His story is fascinating - raised by his grandparents in the family hotel in podunk Idaho - he tells his story by attaching life events to various visitors to the hotel and a wide line-up of characters that come and go. I had a hard time following some of the chronology through the entire narrative, but chronology was not his main goal. Overall a good read.

[Tori Christensen]

I bought this book because my husband's family owned the Enders Hotel before Schrand's family did. Even though he didn't touch on the history before our family, I enjoyed becoming more familiar with one chapter of the hotel's history. Along with history, I got a heavy dose of child/teenage small town life, which was an interesting perspective, but if you are looking for a genteel read, this is not the book for you. Well-written.

[Vickie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book but just couldn't give it more than 3 stars. The book read kind of like a collection of short stories making up the childhood of the main character...struggling to find himself amidst his family's trials and tribulations. Definitely a pleasant and interesting read, but not terribly memorable.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just sped-read to the end.

I'm not sure if I am going to finish reading this book. The language gets harsher and the situations more disturbing as the author gets older. Mike bought it because he met the author at a graduate student conference. It's interesting and well written but I hate reading bad language.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

A ho-hum memoir written in servicable prose that didn't engage me much one way or another. Some of the stories were sweet, some mildly disturbing, but none of them really went anywhere or had a larger point. A much better memoir on growing up and looking for a male role model is The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer.

[Brandon Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biased review alert: Another book by a good friend of mine. Loved this memoir. The fact that the author waits his whole childhood waiting for his dad to come back into his life is something that resonates with anyone who didn't have the relationship with their dad that they desired. This book also touches on a lot of the interesting happenings that go on at the hotel that the author lived at.

[Odetta · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought this book would be interesting because it is about the Enders Hotel in Soda Springs just a few miles up the road from where I have spent my life. I was disappointed. I did not like the language. It is from the Talking Book Service from the Idaho Commission for Libraries & I did not like listening to it.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book. Growing up in Soda - I could really imagine where the book was taking place and understand some of the feelings Brandon felt growing up in such a small conservative town. He's writing is beautiful! The Enders Hotel was always so interesting to me and I love that I could learn some of it's history by reading Brandon's experience while growing up there!

[Joelle Anthony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful writing and engaging stories. I thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. The only thing that made a bit crazy was it jumped around in time, so I wasn't always sure how old he was in any given story. About half the time, he told you, but the other half, I was never sure. Otherwise, very well done indeed.

[Susan Welch · Rating 3 out of 5]

You old Soda girls might like this one. It takes place after we left but has many places and people we knew. It opened my eyes to another side of Soda Springs. I really would enjoy hearing your comments on this book.

[Randy Danielsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Turns out Brandon Schrand, The author of this excellent memoir, is a cousin of mine. I couldn't put this book down. It relates many memories and people that I remember growing up in Soda Springs, Idaho.

[Joneetha Pralou · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a touching book full of memories for the author. While humanistic, I felt that it was jumbled...that for the most part there was no timeline. But it was interesting to read and note the changing times of small mining towns.

[Crystal C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good memoir...some of the individual memories work a more interesting story than others, and the rush to the end left me a bit unfulfilled. Nice exploration a sense of place contrasted with different kinds of "drifters."

[Noël · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was very slow, so i was tempted to give it 3 stars, but the writing, in parts, was beautifully done. i'm glad i read it.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing work about growing up in my hometown. It should be required reading at Soda Springs High School.