Hotel Savoy

Book excerpt: A POW meets other survivors of World War I in a Polish hotel in this acclaimed classic novel by the author of The Radetzky March. Still bearing the scars from gulag experiences, a freed POW traverses Russia to arrive at the Polish town of Lodz. In its massive Hotel Savoy, he meets a surreal cast of characters, each eagerly awaiting the return from America of a rich man named Bloomfield. Like Europe itself at the time, the hotel is the stage upon which characters follow fate to its tragic destination . . . Praise for Hotel Savoy “Superb Roth: witty, elegant, invariably honing in on the point where history trickles down to the level of the individual character and turns into fate.” —The Nation “Roth’s considerable gift lay in sketching myriad personal convulsions in that time of conflagration.” —Publishers Weekly