![]() ![]() Having a soft spot for hotel (and boarding house) settings in fiction ( In a German Pension: 13 Stories, Villa des Roses, Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman, Grand Hotel, Hotel du Lac), the Claremont hotel in London turned out quite an unusual species: for the elderly residents of Hotel Claremont, the hotel is not of the cheerful holiday or escape sort, but serving as the penultimate residence where one is tolerated on earth. ![]() My first foray into the work of the other Elizabeth Taylor propelled me up one side and down the other emotionally.Īs a tragic-comical tale on aging, loneliness, loss, friendship, isolation and dignity written in a punchy and superb prose, Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont made me simultaneously chuckle because of some of Elizabeth Taylor’s delightfully understated, playful observations and gasp for air because of the bleak, devastating picture it paints of the potentially cumbersome and debilitating journey down to the grave when one has pulled the lucky straw of longevity. ![]()
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