description: The novel raises interesting questions about how stupid beliefs can sometimes get big results - Scientology comes to mind, or the Third Way. It also reads like a fairytale of Sayle's own literary career. Like Harriet, he just seems to keep getting better - more supple, more confident and more violent. This is a funny, frightening book which is also refreshingly bonkers. In terms of technique it's a big step forward from his last novel, Overtaken. It's meticulously plotted and persuasive and even has a nice line in nature description. But every now and then old Alexei stops the action, puts on his boots and stamps all over someone. He is not shy about naming names. There's a pair of hateful children called the Yentob twins. There's a fraudulent South American guru-novelist called Paulho Puoncho. Sometimes it's hard to know what the target is. I couldn't, for instance, figure out what Warbird - a charity that rescues talking birds from war zones - was supposed to be. But somehow the more disproportionate and undeserved the anger is, the funnier it is; the gratuitous rants give the book an unpredictable, hectic pace.
language: English
title: The Weeping Women Hotel
titlecomplete: The Weeping Women Hotel
genres: Fiction, Comedy, Humor
ratings_count: 325
publisher: Sceptre