Women’s Hotel

Lavery’s appealingly offbeat debut novel (after the memoir Something That May Shock and Discredit You) explores the importance of a women’s hotel in the lives of its residents. As the story opens in 1960s New York City, breakfast at the Biedermeier, which was developed in the 1930s as a temporary residence for the burgeoning “office-girl generation,” has been discontinued, much to the displeasure of its residents. Katherine Heap, a longtime resident who’s since joined the staff as first-floor director, promises to pass along their complaints. Katherine’s backstory reveals the roots of her devotion to the Biedermeier, showing how as a 22-year-old recent transplant from Ohio, she found a new community and the strength to stay sober. Among the other residents are Lucianne Caruso, whose romantic and professional ups and downs Lavery chronicles to sympathetic effect; journalist Pauline Carter, who carries the flame of her Upper Manhattan family’s devotion to anarchism; Carol Lipscomb, a classics student who forms a makeshift art collective; and telephone operator Kitty Milham. There’s not much of a plot, but there are plenty of dramatic and consequential episodes, such as Katherine’s ill-fated attempt to help Kitty by impersonating her for a scheduled court appearance. Lavery colorfully captures the hotel in the last glimmers of its heyday and brings the misfit residents to life. Patient readers will find much to savor. (Oct.)