Enjoy Your Stay at the Shamrock Motel
In Andrew Kaufman’s wry, bawdy, and surreal supernatural short story collection Enjoy Your Stay at the Shamrock Motel, travelers at personal crossroads happen upon a motel where unexplainable events alter their perceptions of themselves and the people they love.
Sly, offhand narrations ground these out-of-the-ordinary stories wherein people undergo transformations. Some changes come in the form of sexual experimentation: In “If the Bear Makes You Happy,” a woman’s one-night stand with a bear leads to an affair with a bittersweet conclusion, while in “Burt Reynolds,” a man’s confusion about his sexual orientation leads to a night of debauchery at the Shamrock and a hallucinatory dream about a “Queertasticland.” Other stories charge into outright fantastical happenings, as with “Best Friends Forever,” in which a woman beaten down by life has her body cleaned by a group of tiny women who remove her sense of shame while they’re at it. Elsewhere, children live inside credenzas and memories of past girlfriends become plants that can only be forgotten by being eaten.
In its far-out, funny, and sometimes grotesque anecdotes, the book engenders a generous amount of empathy for its heroes, whose struggles with everyday living and unsatisfactory relationships are easy to relate to. While the sexual elements are often extreme, they never feel exploitative. Even when matters get wild and weird, the focus remains on the characters’ spiritual growth. Further, brief explanations of the motel’s magical properties (each of its sixteen rooms has its own specific effect on visitors) and cryptic references to past events add welcome doses of mystery and intrigue.
A delightful concoction of whimsy and insight, the appealing short story collection Enjoy Your Stay at the Shamrock Motel mixes cathartic experiences with fantastical occurrences, rooting its weirdness in recognizable emotions and desires.
Reviewed by
Ho Lin
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
