The Hotel New Hampshire
John Irving, 1981
★ 3.93 from 70.4k ratings on Goodreads
A family turns its parents' romance into a legend, then has to live with the bear, the hotel, and the jokes. Irving's family chronicle moves with a witty, nostalgic warmth, mixing absurd comedy and tender memory at an easy, anecdotal pace.
Feels like nostalgia, tenderness and wonder. About family, memory and love.
Who it’s for
You may like it if you enjoy large, eccentric families, wry jokes, and stories that treat memory as a kind of legend. Be warned that its darker turns into obsession and taboo can make the book hit or miss for some readers.
Why read it
Read it for the pleasure of a family story that is funny and sad at once, and for Irving's loose, anecdotal way of turning ordinary history into myth.
A page from the book
Some families begin with a wedding; this one begins with a bear.
The summer my father bought the bear, none of us was born — we weren’t even conceived: not Frank, the oldest; not Franny, the loudest; not me, the next; and not the youngest of us, Lilly and Egg. My father and mother were hometown kids who knew each other all their lives, but their “union,” as Frank always called it, hadn’t taken place when Father bought the bear. What readers say
Jaded idealists and whimsical misfits find the novel hilarious and heartbreaking in equal measure—a dreamlike, nostalgic, and absurd exploration of family, memory, and the search for home. Its darker themes of obsession, taboo, and maladjustment make it hit or miss.
John Irving.Irving was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, and has said he writes a novel's last sentence first; The Hotel New Hampshire was his fifth.
Books that feel like this
More by John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meany
John Irving, 1989
A boy who believes God has a plan for him, and a friend who spends his life deciding whether to believe it too.
Where to get it
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Questions readers ask
- Is The Hotel New Hampshire for me?
- You may like it if you enjoy large, eccentric families, wry jokes, and stories that treat memory as a kind of legend. Be warned that its darker turns into obsession and taboo can make the book hit or miss for some readers.
- What is The Hotel New Hampshire like?
- Irving's family chronicle moves with a witty, nostalgic warmth, mixing absurd comedy and tender memory at an easy, anecdotal pace. Feels like nostalgia, tenderness and wonder. About family, memory and love.
- What should I read after The Hotel New Hampshire?
- If you liked The Hotel New Hampshire, try Chesapeake Blue (Nora Roberts), The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy) and Fine Things (Danielle Steel).
A taste of the feed
The porch light stays on for the person you became while you were gone.
Now a grown man returning from Europe as a successful painter, Seth is settling down on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, surrounded once again by Cam, Ethan, and Phil, their wives and children, all the blessed chaos of the extended Quinn clan. Finally, he’s back in the little blue-and-white house where there’s always a boat at the dock, a rocker on the porch, and a dog in the yard.
Chesapeake Blue · Nora Roberts
What a house becomes when no one has been living in it.
“It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The old house on the hill wore its steep, gabled roof pulled over its ears like a low hat. The walls, streaked with moss, had grown soft, and bulged a little with dampness that seeped up from the ground. The wild, overgrown garden was full of the whisper and scurry of small lives. In the undergrowth a rat snake rubbed itself against a glistening stone. Hopeful yellow bullfrogs cruised the scummy pond for mates. A drenched mongoose flashed across the leaf strewn driveway.
The God of Small Things · Arundhati Roy
The guilt isn't in the argument; it's in the wanting to leave at all.
“Don’t be rude, Bernard.” She looked prim and he folded his napkin and pushed back his chair. Eating dinner with her always gave him stomach pains. “Where are you going? You haven’t been excused.” As though he were still five years old. He hated coming home sometimes. And then he felt guilty for hating it. And then he got mad at her for making him feel guilty for hating it. . . .
Fine Things · Danielle Steel
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