Hotel World (Ali Smith)

In this strange short novel, six women tell their stories one after the other, each in her own unique voice that reveals the chaotic pattern of her free association, her stream of consciousness. They are all tied together by an event at a hotel, where a young chambermaid fell to her death. The author undeniably drew the reader inside the head of each person, but I found the nontraditional writing tough going. The fifth tale, which contained pretty much no actual sentences but fragments and paragraphs loosely laced together with &s, was too much for me and I skipped over most of it. Someone with a more literary turn of mind would be more open to this book.