At The Grand Glacier Hotel

(8.5)This is a poignant novel and I wasn't surprised to learn that the writer had herself experienced the same illness. Although, as she reflects on her journey, the situation she now finds herself in, shows a strength and determination to try to rediscover or reinvent the person she is. The friendship she forms during her stay in the hotel allows her to start becoming this new person.
The relationships are beautifully drawn as are the small number of characters in this book.
The flora and fauna is almost a character in itself, the wild wet natural landscape is vividly depicted increasing the sense of isolation from the urban world.
This is the third book in the series of books about the senses fearnley has chosen and she delivers on the show more hearing theme. show less

Regular readers of my blog will know that I first became interested in the representation of older women in fiction after coming across the Older Women in Fiction Month at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative where the curator Caroline Lodge wrote in her introductory post that:

A common complaint of older women is that they become invisible. My blog series is in part a challenge to that invisibility in fiction.

If you investigate Caroline's page: about the older women in fiction series you will see that she is interested in fiction...

... that depicts older people, especially older women, as real humans, with the full range of emotions and experiences. Such books are to be treasured but can be hard to find.

Laurence Fearnley's new show more novel At the Grand Glacier Hotel (2024) is one to add to Caroline's list. (And mine.) It's is a wise, thoughtful and engaging novel that explores the all-too-common experience of acquiring a disability later in life. Adjusting to new limitations in the body is shown to be a process that takes time and energy and effort. And patience and courage. It's not a straightforward journey and it's complicated by an ambivalence towards getting help. Older women for whom independence and respect were hard-won achievements are reluctant to shed them, and yet the pathway to being the best that's possible is literally and psychologically full of pitfalls that make some forms of help a necessity, at least some of the time.

The central character and narrator, Libby, is stranded by herself at the Grand Glacier Hotel on the West Coast of the South Island. She and her husband Curtis were fulfilling a long-held ambition to stay at the resort when a landslide separated them after he'd made a side trip to retrieve his reading glasses that he'd lost along the way. After a little while the road is cleared and it becomes possible for them to reunite, but he has to go back to work and she decides to stay and test her independence. Libby is recovering from major surgery on her leg to remove a large sarcoma, and Curtis has been a loyal and supportive husband — but now she wants to see if she can manage by herself.

Though I've never suffered anything as catastrophic as a sarcoma, I could relate to Libby's experience of coming undone because of bravado, coincidentally in a similar setting. With any recently acquired disability, one has to learn what can be done and what must no longer be done, and discovering which is which involves some chastening experiences. Some time after I mushed my ankle, The Spouse and I went up to the Mount Buffalo Chalet in the Victorian Alps and we went for a walk around the grounds. He charged on ahead while I plodded on behind him — until I came to a very large boulder that blocked my way. It was about the size of a king-size bed, and not quite my own height with smooth rounded sides. I thought that maybe I could get up it, but I knew I could not keep my balance to get back down on the other side. And I was not going to call him back to help... I just stood there, waiting, feeling ashamed and embarrassed, until he realised his companion was no longer with him and came back to see where I was.

In Fearnley's novel, Libby tests herself on a walk with a companion, a nice young man called James, but someone has parked carelessly and in negotiating around it, her weak leg lands her in a ditch and she cannot get out by herself. He helps her out and they go on with the walk. But later, setting off for a different trip, he mentions this incident and she realises that for her this had been a panic-stricken humiliating sabotage of her confidence and self-esteem, but that's not what it was for him:

To my embarrassment, James immediately raised the carparking incident and how I'd ended up on the loop track. Some people might have embellished the story, for dramatic impact, but James almost undersold what had happened and it occurred to me, then, how completely different his experience of the episode had been from mine. I'd been truly worried and frightened that I might be stuck in a ditch for a long time, possibly all night. James's version described an event of almost no consequence. I'd lost my balance, stumbled and fallen, and he'd given me a hand up. That was all there was to it. My disaster was his minor incident. (p.127-8)

But what could have been a sombre memoir full of sobering incidents like this, is a novel which is often wry, amusing and self-deprecating.

TO read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/07/22/at-the-grand-glacier-hotel-2024-by-laurence-... show less