Hard Bed Hotel
Doused in magic realism, this humorous, cross-cultural story has a bizarre, twisted plot. Hard Bed Hotel – “Hotel Cama Dura”– is a Chilean slang for ‘Cemetery’.
“Hard Bed Hotel is a hilarous book, the kind that sets you laughing aloud to yourself long after you’ve put it down…. if you CAN put in down, once the plot starts careening towards its unexpected dénouement.
[The author’s] glee in bringing her oddball characters to life and off to meet their improbable destinies is infectious. Observations gleaned with a bemused eye for the absurd over long years of residence in Santiago infuse this story with fond insights into some of the least obvious corners of the city.
The “hard bed” of the title can be found in a place of eternal slumber: Santiago’s main cemetery, but pulsing with life and love. Then there’s the low-life dance halls, cut-rate consignment stores and fly-by-night botox parlours. This is a Santiago populated by the people we love getting to know over an evening of slumming, but would not otherwise invite into our homes.
And yet, when we do get to know them in the pages of this wonderful novel, they warm our hearts with their humour, endearing hubris and simple dignity.”
– Lezak Shallat, Amazon reviewer
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“A humorous and absorbing read. Perfect for anyone who with an eye for the unusual, and a desire to reach further into a story, past the fiction, to find the truth that comes from within us all.“
– KP, Amazon reviewer
Filled with humor & magic realism, this bizarre romance bounds its way to a delightfully unexpected end…
HARD BED HOTEL takes a jaunt through the popular culture of El Cementerio General de Santiago and its adjoining neighborhoods. A lovelorn cemetery caretaker is sure that a recent earthquake has just unearthed the ghost of Jhonny Pretty, Chile’s famous 70s rockstar. He’s Jhonny alright, but he’s not a ghost.
Astrid de las Nieves leads an unremarkable life in her job at Santiago’s General Cemetery, where she has worked for decades cleaning tombs, watering flowers and conversing with the dearly departed. Nothing is out of the ordinary until the day that Jhonny Pretty’s ghost silently glides past – to make Astrid’s dream come true.
Although he’s been reduced to singing for pennies at Slaughterhouse Square, Jhonny is very much alive. After the earthquake destroys his apartment, his only choice is to take up residence at the family mausoleum.
Astrid sets a plan in motion to seduce Jhonny’s ghost and Jhonny plays along for all it’s worth.
Perspective is skewed through the lens of desire. The thin line between the living and the dead is blurred, and nothing is as it seems – rockstar is ghostly indigent, pickpocket is tourism executive, shop owner is purveyor of saints, con artist is plastic surgeon and meddling ghost is guardian angel.
Everything goes wrong but maybe it’s right, as heaven and earth settle into an unexpected juxtaposition in this twisted Latin tale that is doused with humor and magic realism.
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E-book ISBN 978-0-9880032-2-4
Print book ISBN 978-0-9880032-3-1
6” x 9” paper, 252 pages
FIC056000– FICTION / Hispanic & Latino
FIC061000 – FICTION / Magical Realism
FIC016000 – FICTION / Humorous / General
Publisher: Stories with Character
(Hard Bed Hotel was first published June 2013, author name, Andrea Carter)