Claude Ballard's cutting-edge, notorious 1910 film The Electric Hotel had impelled audience to high emotion. It was his highest achievement, but it came crashing down when Thomas Edison sued his company for copyright infringement--as he did all his competition, seeking a monopoly on the film industry.
Claude has not seen a movie since 1920 when in 1962 a grad student in filmography seeks him out. He realizes he has been "pickling" himself for thirty years, holed up in a hotel filled with other aging film industry has-beens, his hoard of film decaying from vinegar syndrome.
"He'd witnessed and photographed the passing of a golden, burnished epoch." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith
As Claude answers Martin's questions and shares his hoard of decaying canisters of film, he revisits his early life and ascent from a French farmer's son who in 1895 was mesmerized by the early Lumiere films, how he became a noted movie maker, then while bravely filming WWI he was taken by the German army, always haunted by the film actress who broke his heart.
"When I dream of that old life I see it like a strip of burning celluloid. It smokes and curls in the air, but it's impossible to hold between my fingers." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith
Sabine Montrose had beauty but no heart. She arrived in Paris as a teenager and fled when men pursued her. She learned to act and to use men but never would give her heart. Claude became one of her victims when the older woman took him into her bed for one night only. Claude was caught in her web, filmed her and made her an international star, forever hoping that Sabine would allow him into her life once again.
"Loving a woman was like that...was chasing smoke." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic Smith
The son of a failed nickelodeon owner, Hal was the theater owner who ran Claude's films; the small, spunky boy Chip was the burning man in a circus act when he joined the company as a stuntman. Sabine's mysterious mentor Pavel was always at her side.
The mystery of what happened pulled me along like a magnet, but I cherished every sentence of the gorgeous writing and would not skip a line.
Smith was impressed by the quality and art of the early movies he viewed during his research. What treasures have been lost? The Electric Hotel is an actual 1908 film recently rediscovered. I viewed it online here. A couple take a room in a hotel in which stop-action animated luggage takes itself up the elevator and unpacks itself. Brushes clean the traveler's boots. I can imagine the impact on audiences over 100 years ago!
"People wanted escape, sure, but first they wanted the shock of recognition." from The Electric Hotel by Dominic SmithI previously read Smith's novels The Mercury Visions of Louise Daguerre and read and reviewed The Last Painting of Sara DeVos.
Read an excerpt at http://www.dominicsmith.net/pdfs/excerpts/Eletric_Hotel_Excerpt.pdf
I was given access to an egalley through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.
The Electric Hotel: A Novel
by Dominic Smith
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sarah Crichton Books
Pub Date 04 Jun 2019
ISBN 9780374146856
PRICE $27.00 (USD)
