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But this is not the sun dappled island paradise of which many dream. It is instead a rather seedy spot, a down-at-the-heels 80 room hotel on an unimposing byway several blocks from the beach in Waikiki. "The rooms were small, the elevator was narrow, the lobby was tiny, the bar was just a nook."

The owner, Buddy Hamstra, a man with protean appetites, bridled at calling his place small. It was, he said, "Yerpeen."

Resident manager for this haven is an unsuccessful writer who has no hotel experience, but a sharp eye for observing and facile tongue for relating the human dramas that unfold behind closed doors.

Readers will find themselves drawn to the off-beat, flawed characters who visit the hotel, and reminded that Mr. Theroux is not only a trenchant observer of humankind but one blessed with limitless imagination and a powerful sense of place.

There's a wide variety of characters and a loose non-conventional plot. Most memorable of all is the larger-than-life figure of millionaire and hotel owner Buddy Hamstra, a big man who over-indulges his appetites in life. There's the writer's wife and daughter as well as permanent and temporary hotel guests and employees. It's a collection of vignettes interwoven with reoccurring themes and finely developed people. It's big and sprawling and full of pathos and humor, small portraits of human nature focusing on the themes of love and death.

I found myself drawn into it, enjoying the author's sharp observations and finding myself wanting to laugh out loud. How each character views this world is fascinating and the writer dares to ridicule it all. There's a power in the book that kept me reading in spite of the meandering pace. It's sad and funny and very human all at the same time as it willingly explores such topics such as ethnic tensions and physical disabilities. It might not always be a flattering picture of a place we sometimes think of as paradise, but it sure does seem real, as the characters grope and blunder along in their lives below a constantly shining Hawaiian sun. I just loved the experience of reading this book. Definitely recommended.

Only Theroux could have the audacity to set his alter-ego narrator down amid uneducated, semi-literate hotel workers who mostly speak Pidgin English, then loudly bemoan a lack of intellectual companionship. It is this narrator, a fiftyish ex-writer now hotel manager in late mid-life transition, who provides the commentary and, like Scheherazade, spins the intricately woven tales of everyone who comes to live at or near the Hotel Honolulu. Eventually the manager begins to be more revealing of his own inner life, which has a decidedly different tone than that of those around him, milder, less two-dimensional. He makes a friend; he admits his love of the printed word and the importance of being understood; he loses at Scrabble; he tends bees.

As the first line points out, themes of death run throughout the hotel. This may be paradise but people are throwing themselves off balconies left and right because they cannot effectively cope with the changes in their lives. Most of the characters have dramatic pasts, but lives change, cultures change and language changes, especially in Hawaii. Even the manager who suffers with writer's block confronts his fear of dying if he cannot find his voice in this new world. It has been a common technique of Theroux to allude to events which may or may not be aspects of his own life, putting the reader in doubt. Although the narrator's small daughter Rose (one of the few female characters who is not cast in a slightly misogynist light), maintains a certainty about what is real, it is not as clear cut for us. A hotel is a great symbol for the unconscious so it is not surprising when the narrator states that it has become his whole world, the perfect place to manufacture stories - fantasies about sex, death and, if you are a writer, about writing.

While not always a comfortable read and no doubt Theroux's darkest comedy, Hotel Honolulu is in my opinion a tremendously original and moving novel.

If readers are hoping for plot, try Theroux's masterful sci-fi story O-Zone, or the bizarre sexual deviant thriller Chicago Loop, ore even the anti-establishment raves Milroy the Magician or Mosquito Coast. Discover Paul Theroux, a truly great writer, a mastermid who can take his reader on a funfilled ride of literary loops and thrills that leave you breathless at the feats of prose prowess and always wanting more.

For the theme of this series of short tales is life. Using the image of a "decomposing writer,"
he's transformed into a manager of an off-beat hotel while suffering the loss of his muse. The
muse has not truly deserted him, nor us, as he records the lives of guests, family, other staff
and local residents. Theroux is an avid listener to "the coarse language of life." He listens
well, conveying what he gleans with unsurpassed vividness. He may not be composing a
novel from what he learns, but he tells us what they imparted. We are watching their
existence through his eyes. The view is distorted little, if at all.

Theroux's travels have brought him to understand life isn't a finished work. There's no
discernible plot line, simply a series of episodes from birth to the end. Many of the events
bear no apparent meaning, but they all add up to an individual's history. That's how he's
constructed this book. Those who complain that the plot line is thin need only look in the
nearest mirror. Any one of us could be a character here, with notable exception. Nearly all
the people the "writer" encounters are astonished to discover his trade. Few however, if any
of them, read. His distress at this discovery is apparent, but while it diminishes the narrator,
none of the characters feels they've missed anything. They are getting on with other things -
their own lives, as inadequate as we may judge that life to be.

There are too many characters in this book to record here. One of the most endearing is the
barman Tran, a refugee, and one time boat person. His patience compels our attention and is
matched only by his sense of irony. Buddy Hamstra, the hotel's owner, becomes the pivot for
many of the story's populace. Theroux returns to Buddy throughout the book, a sun-like
presence around which many of the others orbit. He's despised and adored with equal
weight depending on the relation he's established with them. He, too, hates and loves with
fierce intensity. But his impact on them and the writer is unquestionable. Hamstra becomes
the dominant example of Theroux's experience of life's story.

Theroux incorporates various real people in his account. His exchanges on writing with
Henry James scholar Leon Edel read with perfect validity. Their conversations are mute but
significant. Edel gently nudges the writer to return to his craft. Novels are only the extension
of the writer's fantasies. His words could encourage anyone to bring those fantasies to life on
the page. Theroux, of course, has done just that with this book. The difference between
Theroux and the rest of us is his passion for narrative.