When I was 11 or so I saw The White Hotel in a grocery store check-out line, in a small rack of books next to People magazine. It was the early 80s and even though I'd already snuck in reading Judy Blume's Forever and a few Stephen Kings, I'd never been bold enough to try for something like what I thought the book above represented.
In my mind's eye it would have the things you'd find if you merged Jackie Collins (whom I'd only ever heard about in hushed whispers) and Stephen King together. Scared, but very curious, I reached out and pulled the book out of the rack. If you opened it to the inset, you would see this:
I remember this picture so vividly and how much it terrified me, so much I immediately returned the paperback to where it belonged. I think my dad said something along the lines of, "You shouldn't look at that."
For years that book remained completely different in my head than it actually is. I thought of it as some kind of horrific, sexed-up version of the tv show "Hotel." It's only now that I've decided to read it, finding the current edition (much more understated), that I'm giving it a go:
It is no less terrifying than my younger self thought...but for completely different reasons. I have been sucked in since the first page...The reason the book jumped back into my brain is because of this title, which has given me a long list of books to be read:
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