PositiveThe RumpusMandel asks us to feel sympathy...but the multiplicity of the collective voice keeps us at arm’s length. We are never quite implicated in their wrongdoing. Indeed, I get the distinct feeling that Mandel would rather have us sympathize with the drifters of her world. Vincent, our way into the narrative, is the heart of the novel. Apart from her propulsive monologues, which bookend the novel, she is not a character who is tied to one way of existing in the world ... In this world of parallel countries and existences, it’s difficult to get a handle on what’s worth holding onto. Like the novel’s more transient characters, success in this world is slippery, and often temporary; the possibility of a backslide is always present. Yet, Mandel succeeds in grounding the narrative. She delivers a wide-ranging tale of ruin and reckoning, without ever leaving the reader unmoored. For a writer so concerned with fracture, she’s remarkably good at keeping disparate elements all in one piece. In crisis, she creates cohesion—perhaps even community. Instead of embracing the insularity of Alkaitis’s counterlife, Mandel looks outward. The Glass Hotel reminds us there’s a whole world out there, beyond the boundaries of our bunkers.
