The Enders Hotel: A Memoir (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)
by Brandon R. Schrand
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brandon R. SchrandEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-05-01
ISBN: 0803217692
Number of pages: 238
Publisher: Bison Books
Book Reviews of The Enders Hotel: A Memoir (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)
Book Review: A sharing of boyhood memories from an unusual place
Summary: 5 Stars
Growing up in a hotel sounds like a cool and exotic experience, doesn't it? At the very least, it must have offered the chance to meet all kinds of people. And eating all of your meals at a caf? counter, sitting on an upholstered and spinnable stool, would have been fun, too. Well: maybe. These are the kinds of scenes Brandon Schrand recalls when he thinks back to his childhood. He lets us in on his unique past within the pages of this intriguing memoir.
Schrand's family owned the Enders Hotel in Soda Springs, Idaho, from 1975 to 1992. A three-story brick building with more than 100 rooms, the hotel dates to 1919 and was named for William and Theodore Enders, the German immigrant brothers who built it. Coincidentally, the establishment was also an attraction for "enders" of other sorts: transients, recovering alcoholics, and individuals just plain down on their luck. Schrand's relatives -- a complex combination of personalities as a result of multi-generational divorces -- accommodated pretty much all of them, when they weren't on the move or in recovery themselves. "It seems fitting, inevitable perhaps," he writes, "that we eventually bought a hotel, a place outfitted with so many exits and entrances, and a place that seemed itself a beacon to the far-farers, to people, ultimately, like us." (p. 203) At the same time, Brandon was growing up. An only child with a vivid imagination and a clubhouse that he eventually shared with friends and classmates, Brandon spent his so-called "formative years" doing odd jobs around the building, alternatively interacting or deliberately ignoring the guests (as per his parents' orders), and exploring the natural areas around the hotel. Complete with a geyser that erupted every hour on the hour, Soda Springs was a company town, a tourist destination, and a temporary way station for many a passer-by. For Brandon, it was Home.
The novelties are what make for interesting reading here. Soda Springs. An unusual family situation. Living in and operating a hotel with a bar and a restaurant. Most of us don't come from similar situations. And yet: growing up is in itself a common experience and one that we can all relate to, no matter the location. And though we may be singularly place-oriented when we are children, it is only when we become adults and look back over the years that we realize that the individuals who surrounded us at the time made the difference, all along. As much as we loved special buildings or certain towns, it was the people who made those places remarkable for us. That can be a hard lesson to learn; harder still, to accept.
Writing such a book is a risky business, since it reveals so much of oneself and one's family. (How did Brandon remember all of these boyhood incidents???) This is the kind of memoir that prompts you to write your own. It's easy to see why it's an award winner.
Summary of The Enders Hotel: A Memoir (River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize)
In the center of the rural boomtown of Soda Springs, Idaho, stands the historic Enders Hotel, Caf?, 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.
(07/16/2007)
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