REVIEW: "The Sun Down Motel" by Simone St. James
I have a long history of being scared of hotels.
Ruined, at too young an age, by The Shining, I've found them creepy for as long as I remember.
Despite my lingering fear, I’ve spent many a solo night in a hotel, traveling for work. Almost any time I hunker down, alone, in an unfamiliar room, I face the same semi-paralyzing experience. I am forced to wander into the bathroom in the wee hours motivated by my need to pee but, at the same time, terrified that I will be greeted by some long-dead bitch, only partially covered by the spookily opaque shower curtain, bathing in my tub, just waiting to rapidly decompose all Indian Jones and the Last Crusade style, right in front of my bleary eyes.
So it’s only natural, then, that this novel scared the bejebbies out of me.
Though not set in a sweeping mountain lodge but instead a small, disused highway side motel, it retained all of the creepiness of The Shining and was just as effective in inducing me to sleep with the lights on.
Though Viv Delaney had her sights set on New York City when she left home, pretty much penniless and entirely without a plan, she only ever made it as far as upstate New York.
It’s not surprising, really, given everything working against her. A young woman, on her own, without money, in the technology desert that was 1982, the odds were certainly not in her favor.
Determined not to go home, she takes a job working overnights at The Sun Down Motel, an ill-conceived highway-side lodging option nestled against the sleepy upstate town of Fell, New York. Though, in 1982, The Sun Down is relatively new, it’s already had a storied history.
Deaths.
Disasters
Disappearances.
The Sun Down has seen it all.
And at night, when the lights are low and the outside spookily calm, Viv sees it, too.
Braver than most, Viv doesn’t allow these apparitions to scare her away from The Sun Down. Quite the contrary, she somehow finds herself drawn even closer to this spooky motel.
They can’t hurt her, she thinks.
She doesn’t realize how wrong she is, until the night she disappears.
Now, over thirty years later, a new young woman — very much like Viv — arrives in town.
Prompted by the recent death of her mother — Viv’s sister — Carly has abandoned her life and her plans and come to upstate New York to do something she didn’t feel like she could do when her mother was alive: find out what happened to the aunt she has never known.
Desperate for answers that are certainly not forthcoming, Carly takes a job at The Sun Down, working the same shift her aunt worked all those years prior.
One thing she learns quickly is that Fell, New York, in general, and The Sun Down in particular, are rich in secrets.
There are, clearly, truths someone is desperate to keep hidden.
And the closer she gets to finding the answers she seeks, the more she begins to realize that, if she keeps pushing, she might suffer the same fate as Viv did all those years ago.
If I had to describe this novel in one word, it would easily be “atmospheric.”
And that’s appropriate, I suppose, for a novel titled after a location.
But The Sun Down Motel itself was more than just the eponymous place where much of the action of the book was set. In fact, the hotel was less a setting and more a character.
And, honestly, it was the best character of all.
While long-missing Viv and spunky-and-obviously-looking-to-die-young Carly were great, strong women, the hotel itself, with its complex, bloody past, jumped off the page.
Paradoxically, I was both desperate to visit and terrified to stay.
Through her use of rich description, Simone St. James built a fictional place that felt so real I was tempted to look it up on Hotels.com.
This enabled me to better put myself in the shoes of our protagonists. I could picture the peeling paint and smell the stale smoke and hear the rustle of leaves blowing across the cracked parking lot. And because I could so completely put myself in this location, I felt just as vulnerable as Carly felt now and Viv must have felt all those years ago.
The fact that the setting was absolutely immersive significantly enhanced the quality of this book and transformed it from a simple, forgettable supernatural thriller to something that will stick with readers long after they have finished.
St. James’ format of choice — dual protagonists, separated by time — is hardly a groundbreaking one. In fact, I can think of at least five books I’ve read this year featuring a similar set-up. But this novel demonstrated the most effective use of this technique I’ve encountered in recent reading.
Both of the protagonists were rich and fully developed. As a result, I found myself rooting for an against-all-odds return of the obviously-likely-dead Viv while nibbling away at my nails, stressing over Carly’s safety.
Despite the fact that Viv and Carly were clearly separate women, they remained connected by these gossamer threads of similarity.
They both had the same experiences.
They both made the same choices.
They both were almost unbelievably brave.
One thing that was really interesting to me was that, as I read, I found the facts getting muddled in my mind.
Wait, does Viv know this... or Carly? I found myself wondering time and time again as I followed along with the protagonists in trying to piece together the clues and solve the overarching mystery that drove the plot of this novel.
Though this definitely kept me on my toes — and required that I limit my during-reading-indulgence to one glass of wine or a single cocktail — I actually viewed it as a strength.
As I think about it, critically, the fact that I could so easily mix up these women really says something about their interchangeability.
Though separated by 35 years and having never met, they could all but be the same person.
Both 20 years old.
Inexperienced in love.
Brave beyond expectation.
Fueled by a false feeling of invincibility.
And this was fitting because it reflected what I viewed as an overarching theme of the novel itself: the interchangeability and, ultimately, forgetability of women.
The willingness of society to overlook and underestimate them and their potential.
The ease with which memories of them are repressed and they are relegated to just a footnote in history, their disappearances not even worthy of investigation.
In truth, even if I weren’t particularly afraid of hotels, I would never behave as Viv and Carly did in this book. I wouldn’t look danger in its face and persist, nevertheless.
But I believe that there are people who would.
I believe that Carly and Viv would.
They were powerful protagonists facing off against daunting forces.
And I loved every minute of my exploration of their fearless battle.
This book earns an easy 5 out of 5 cocktails.
For obvious reasons, I love a fearless female protagonist. Who is your favorite ridiculous-unafraid leading lady? Tell me about it in the comments, below.
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