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Hotel Andromeda
A whimsical yet dark exploration of rigged biology, femininity and guns, Hotel Andromeda revolves around the lives of five girls, each born on the same day to the same mother but different fathers. Regina, Lydia, Pamela, Dora and Danielle have been under constant surveillance since they were infants. They live alone in a hotel--but is it a hotel? The rooms are empty, the girls have daily appointments with a talk therapist and their mother, a champion marksman, seems to have forgotten all about them. As their boredom intensifies, so does their deviousness; their ideas about personality and identity are challenged by the oppressive predictability of their environment. Combining lurid, surreal photographs by Jenny Gage with Heidi Julavits' penchant for the giddily sinister, Hotel Andromeda provides a wicked meditation on girlhood, alienation and the perversions born from being watched in isolation.
- GenresFiction
90 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2003
71 people want to read
About the author
Heidi Julavits
119 books347 followersHeidi Suzanne Julavits is an American author and co-editor of The Believer magazine. She has been published in The Best Creative Nonfiction Vol. 2, Esquire, Story, Zoetrope All-Story, and McSweeney's Quarterly. Her novels include The Mineral Palace (2000), The Effect of Living Backwards (2003) and The Uses of Enchantment (2006) and The Vanishers (2012).
She was born and grew up in Portland, Maine, before attending Dartmouth College. She later went on to earn an MFA from Columbia University.
She wrote the article "Rejoice! Believe! Be Strong and Read Hard!" (subtitled: "A Call For A New Era Of Experimentation, and a Book Culture That Will Support It") in the debut issue of The Believer, a publication which attempts to avoid snarkiness and "give people and books the benefit of the doubt."
In 2005, she told the New York Times culture writer A.O. Scott how'd she decided on The Believer's tone: "I really saw 'the end of the book' as originating in the way books are talked about now in our culture and especially in the most esteemed venues for book criticism. It seemed as though their irrelevance was a foregone conclusion, and we were just practicing this quaint exercise of pretending something mattered when of course everyone knew it didn't." She added her own aim as book critic would be "to endow something with importance, by treating it as an emotional experience."
She has also written short stories, such as "The Santosbrazzi Killer", which was published in Harper's Magazine.
Julavitz currently lives in Maine and Manhattan with her husband, the writer Ben Marcus, and their children
She was born and grew up in Portland, Maine, before attending Dartmouth College. She later went on to earn an MFA from Columbia University.
She wrote the article "Rejoice! Believe! Be Strong and Read Hard!" (subtitled: "A Call For A New Era Of Experimentation, and a Book Culture That Will Support It") in the debut issue of The Believer, a publication which attempts to avoid snarkiness and "give people and books the benefit of the doubt."
In 2005, she told the New York Times culture writer A.O. Scott how'd she decided on The Believer's tone: "I really saw 'the end of the book' as originating in the way books are talked about now in our culture and especially in the most esteemed venues for book criticism. It seemed as though their irrelevance was a foregone conclusion, and we were just practicing this quaint exercise of pretending something mattered when of course everyone knew it didn't." She added her own aim as book critic would be "to endow something with importance, by treating it as an emotional experience."
She has also written short stories, such as "The Santosbrazzi Killer", which was published in Harper's Magazine.
Julavitz currently lives in Maine and Manhattan with her husband, the writer Ben Marcus, and their children
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 9, 2008
I was way into her writing style in her addition to "the show I'll never forget", and this was no disappointment. heidi julavits is a little bit awesome.
September 30, 2022
I was brought to this novella(?) by her fantastic story Miniaturist, from McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories. Though I think Miniaturist is a stronger writing, this one was captivating, rough, funny, and bizarre. The lush photographs complement the story, sort of, and this art book is worth your time if you like her writing and a touch of the surreal.
July 30, 2013
I have read all four of Julavits’s novels, and hungry for more, I bought this book off of Amazon. Julavits is fascinating because with each book she writes, you can see her progression as an author. The Mineral Palace is her most standard novel, in that she doesn’t do a whole lot of messing with readers’ perceptions. Her second novel, The Effect of Living Backwards, is where she really starts to make you wonder about the accuracy of what you’re reading, or if perhaps things are not at all as they seem. The Uses of Enchantment pushes the envelope even further by introducing a terribly unreliable narrator, and The Vanishers introduces an element of psychological madness. Things just get more and more perverse as you go along.
This book was written between her first and second novel, and I think this is evident in her writing style. In this novella, she plays with the idea that things aren’t always what they seem, but doesn’t delve real deep into this concept. The mother of quintuplets vanishes and lies about her whereabouts, a doctor/psychologist studies girls at a hotel, and the girls are under surveillance with cameras. There’s definitely the question in the reader’s mind of “Why on earth is this happening?”, but the reader never really has to wonder “Is this really happening?” (within the fictional context of the book).
I also feel like Julavits left an awful lot of stuff unexplored. I believe she has a background in psychology, so it would have been really cool to explore the distinct personalities of five girls raised in identical circumstances, but only two of the five quintuplets ever show any sort of personality in the book.
The pictures were wonderful; there was one picture of a girl in a bathtub that I particularly liked. There’s some nudity, but it’s an artful nudity. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have noted, the pictures don’t have much to do with the book. The book is about five girls in a hotel, and the pictures are of women in hotel rooms or outdoors. But you can’t really map the pictures to anything going on in the story.
Ultimately, I’d give it two stars, because the writing was strong and the pictures were strong, but I just didn’t feel like it all came together well.
This book was written between her first and second novel, and I think this is evident in her writing style. In this novella, she plays with the idea that things aren’t always what they seem, but doesn’t delve real deep into this concept. The mother of quintuplets vanishes and lies about her whereabouts, a doctor/psychologist studies girls at a hotel, and the girls are under surveillance with cameras. There’s definitely the question in the reader’s mind of “Why on earth is this happening?”, but the reader never really has to wonder “Is this really happening?” (within the fictional context of the book).
I also feel like Julavits left an awful lot of stuff unexplored. I believe she has a background in psychology, so it would have been really cool to explore the distinct personalities of five girls raised in identical circumstances, but only two of the five quintuplets ever show any sort of personality in the book.
The pictures were wonderful; there was one picture of a girl in a bathtub that I particularly liked. There’s some nudity, but it’s an artful nudity. Unfortunately, as other reviewers have noted, the pictures don’t have much to do with the book. The book is about five girls in a hotel, and the pictures are of women in hotel rooms or outdoors. But you can’t really map the pictures to anything going on in the story.
Ultimately, I’d give it two stars, because the writing was strong and the pictures were strong, but I just didn’t feel like it all came together well.
August 28, 2012
Julavits lets the mother figure lurk on the boundaries of this story, a story about the very breakable bonds of sisterhood. I wish this were novel-length, as I think there's so much hinted at here to which the reader doesn't get treated. A fascinating set-up with enough pay-off to intrigue/ leave me wanting more.
Overall, the book is well-designed but the photos are "Cindy Sherman light" and totally disconnected from the story ie unnecessary. Oh, how clever...a photo of a woman masturbating in a tub! How very Madonna circa SEX. Yawn.
Overall, the book is well-designed but the photos are "Cindy Sherman light" and totally disconnected from the story ie unnecessary. Oh, how clever...a photo of a woman masturbating in a tub! How very Madonna circa SEX. Yawn.
November 24, 2007
I love the photographs. I love the story. However, I'm not so sure they really need to be presented together. In fact, while reading, I never considered the package cohesive. The photos distracted from the words, and vice versa.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews