Travelers Rest

A Novel

De: Keith Lee Morris

Narrado por: Peter Berkrot

A chilling fable about a family marooned in a snowbound town whose grievous history intrudes on the dreamlike present.

The Addisons -- Julia and Tonio, ten-year-old Dewey, and derelict Uncle Robbie -- are driving home, cross-country, after collecting Robbie from yet another trip to rehab. When a terrifying blizzard strikes outside the town of Good Night, Idaho, they seek refuge in the town at the Travelers Rest, a formerly opulent but now crumbling and eerie hotel where the physical laws of the universe are bent.

Once inside the hotel, the family is separated. As Julia and Tonio drift through the maze of the hotel's spectral interiors, struggling to make sense of the building's alluring powers, Dewey ventures outward to a secret-filled diner across the street. Meanwhile, a desperate Robbie quickly succumbs to his old vices, drifting ever further from the ones who love him most.

With each passing hour, dreams and memories blur, tearing a hole in the fabric of our perceived reality and leaving the Addisons in a ceaseless search for one another. At each turn a mysterious force prevents them from reuniting, until at last Julia is faced with an impossible choice.

Can this mother save her family from the fate of becoming Souvenirs -- those citizens trapped forever in magnetic Good Night -- or, worse, from disappearing entirely? With the fearsome intensity of a ghost story, the magical spark of a fairy tale, and the emotional depth of the finest family sagas, Keith Lee Morris takes us on a journey beyond the realm of the known. Featuring prose as dizzyingly beautiful as the mystical world Morris creates, Travelers Rest is both a mind-altering meditation on the nature of consciousness and a heartbreaking story of a family on the brink of survival.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Beautifully written. Morris has an adroit hand for characterization and atmosphere; the people feel real....and the haunting isolation of Good Night looms and chills throughout the story."—N.K. Jemisin, New York Times Book Review

"Thoughtful, engaging, and clearly the work of a writer who knows what he's doing....Morris's prose is very good--polished, accessible, and at times quirkily humorous....There's much to admire and enjoy in Travelers Rest. The writing is persuasive, the characters are rich, and there are moments of great emotional resonance. Should you choose to stay a while in Good Night, Idaho, then--unlike the Addisons--you won't regret it."
—Michael Marshall Smith, The Guardian

"Travelers Rest does not go in for Gothic horror shocks, presenting instead a subtle, meticulous examination of strained relationships, the effects of isolation on the mind, and the persistent hold memory has over us....The novel resembles the kind of nightmare you can't seem to wake from....It exerts a powerful hold."
—James Lovegrove, Financial Times

"Morris's third novel is just as rewarding as his short stories, brimming as it is with ghosts, dream mines, and snowy mazes...In his artful hands, the fallible and relatable characters make for good company in the punchy cabin-fever atmosphere."
—Courtney Ferguson, Portland Mercury

"It says much of Morris's skill that he's able to keep us bewitched and beguiled in this topsy-turvy world with its endless corridors, twisting stairs, and Escher-like surroundings. The novel culminates in an almost operatic grand finale where past and present meet in a satisfying conclusion." —John Clarke, The Independent

"Time and space are as fluid as water in Keith Lee Morris's labyrinthine third novel...Proustian in theme but not in form, Travelers Rest is the definition of dreamlike prose. Morris's writing is clean and cold as snow. The pages drift by just as effortlessly, lulling you into a quiet cocoon that you realize, too late, is actually something much more sinister."
—Adam Morgan, BookPage

"It won't take long-a page, maybe two-before you feel wondrously disquieted by Keith Lee Morris's Travelers Rest. The novel traps its characters in the town of Good Night, Idaho, and the reader in its shaken snow globe of a world. The language dazzles and the circumstances chill and put this story in the good company of Stephen King's The Shining, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and David Lynch's Twin Peaks. This is a breakout book that will earn Morris the wide readership he richly deserves."
—Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands and Red Moon

Travelers Rest

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Fans of Steven King might enjoy this

What could Keith Lee Morris have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

This really could have been edited down. It seemed to go on and on and on. It almost feels like the characters themselves that the author got pulled into the circular story and couldn't get out of it. The book had the feel of the movie 1408 but less interesting. Lots and lots of self reflection to the point of boredom. I was really hoping this would get scary but it never did. I do think the author is talented but this effort left me disappointed.

What about Peter Berkrot’s performance did you like?

Without Peter's performance, I don't think I could have gotten through this. Great with giving characters their own voice. Well done.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I wanted to love this book and it started well but too quickly got into endless pages of self reflection. I was hoping this would be in the vein of the Shining but it never got there.

A cool surprise

I bought this one on sale, having no idea what it was about. I'm not a literary fiction person but this has enough Twilight Zone flavor to keep me interested in the lit fic "dysfunctional family confronts its issues" thing, which I usually find too navel gazing and tedious to handle for a whole book. There's some really enjoyable imagery folded into the creepy happenings, too. Good stuff, makes me want to explore the genre more.