Customer Reviews

Moonlight Hotel: A Novel

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Veteran war correspondent Anderson sets his second novel amidst the U.S. diplomatic community in a small fictional quasi-Arab backwater, circa 1983. I had enjoyed Anderson's non-fiction book about abducted aid worker Fred Cuny several years ago, and since I grew up in the Arab world in the '70s and early '80s in the U.S. diplomatic community, this new book interested me. In it, the fictional Kingdom of Kutar is an insignificant former British colony somewhat reminiscent of Oman or Yemen, with sparsely populated desert and mountains receding from the sleepy coastal capital. The story centers on David Richards, a 30-something USAID representative who splits his time between the day-to-day routine of embassy life and project management, and seducing stray expat women. The opening chapters set up his life as enjoyable, but somewhat devoid of meaning. He is roused from this torpor when, on his way back from a trip to the mountains to check on a water exploration project, he witnesses a surprising escalation of unrest from rebels who have been sporadically sparring with government forces since the end of British rule. It doesn't take long for a little unrest to snowball into major problem thanks to the incompetent meddling of the embassy's U.S. military attache and subsequent NATO intervention on the side of the government.

This is where the book stumbles just a bit. Up until here, Anderson has built a very solid fictional setting, along with a fairly astute observations of diplomatic life in a global backwater, and a cast of believable, if not entirely interesting, characters. However, the book veers from compelling drama into tragicomic farce with the introduction of Major Munn. The belligerent little Texan is so over the top, the only comparison that comes to mind is a unholy mix of Gen. Buck Turgidson and Gen. Jack D. Ripper (the George C. Scott and Sterling Hayden characters) from the film Dr. Strangeglove. And since it is Munn's enthusiastic idiocy that leads to all the tragedy that follows, one wishes Anderson had made him a more nuanced and plausible agent of change instead of "newspeak"-spouting cartoon figure.

In any event, before long, the rebels have got heavy artillery on the ridges surrounding the capital (rather like the Serbs and Sarajevo, one of the hotspots Anderson has reported from). When the rebels order all foreigners to leave the capital, David volunteers to stay behind as the U.S. representative, along with a longtime British resident diplomat, and a handful of others including a cynical war correspondent, an ancient MIddle European countess, an Italian businessman, and a beautiful woman who is the Western-raised granddaughter of a northern tribal chieftain turned millionaire (guess which one eventually shares David's bed?). This motley group make the once-grand Moonlight Hotel their home during the weeks of siege that follow. As the rebels sporadically rain artillery, mortar, and sniper fire onto the capital (very much like Sarajevo) and morale crumbles, David and the British representative shuttle around to various ministries and attempt to broker some kind of solution with vague and/or contradictory guidance from Washington and London.

Although the communiques from the State Department to David are rather over-the-top examples of bureaucratic double-talk, this section is where the book really shines. Anderson displays how haphazard policies initiated by the U.S. can lead to huge suffering and loss of life on the other side of the world, with very little stateside media attention or consequences for decision-makers. As David comes to realize that his government has created a mess only to utterly abandon it, his outrage and frustration grows until his conscience compels him to take a stand. This transformation isn't wholly convincing and is kind of cliche -- it seems rather implausible that any Foreign Service officer would make it to their mid-'30s without already come to the various realizations that he does over the course of the story. It doesn't help that David's ultimate "bold move" wouldn't actually be possible in real life (this involves his accessing $7,000,000 in the embassy safe, a figure that is about ten times the real amount an embassy of that size would have had on hand).

The book has a number of other minor flaws that make it a step down from outstanding. The shifts in tone between straight drama and farcical satire don't work very well, and as a protagonist, David isn't particularly compelling. His relationship with the wealthy Kutari woman seems kind of pro forma, and a backstory about his brother's death in Vietnam doesn't add the depth it's clearly meant to. Still, in most respects, Anderson writes with authenticity and insight about the era in which America's diplomats became subordinate to its military, with all the shameful real-life suffering and consequences that shift continues to result in.

As a disclaimer, I have never reviewed a book in my life, but after reading this(and wishing I had not turned the last page) I am wanting other people to know they have a great read ahead. This book is so compelling. the characters and the country(even though it is fictional) will stay with you long after you turn the last page. It is hard to say good bye.
Anderson's understanding of war and all of the horrors-and in the odd way of it's beauty really sink into your soul. you will not forget this book.
The clever character observations and portrayals are a real treat. Sly, you will understand what I mean when you read it. It is like a sad but true realization of real people acting this way-our governmentals included.
You will laugh out loud and then you will gasp as the direct reality of the horrors of war-not as we see it on TV but as it is right then, right there.. It truly makes your mind spin and as I alluded, you will be in some way changed by reading this book...and isn't that what good writing is?????
Anderson informs us in such a way that our world view can change. He has a unique perspective that is both thoughtful and entralling. You will stop dead in your tracks on some pages just to absorb/grasp the full beauty/ reality of what you have just read. Many of the well crafted and very impactive sentences/paragraphs will have you silently get introspective and then going "WOW" This is why I read. this is a window on the world I need to know but in the safety of my hometown, I am glad to have a journalist/author who can put the whole darn ting into words

"Moonlight Hotel" is an admirable, comendable effort. I'll admit I won't be ardently pressing it into anyone's hands, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Of special note is an incredible, three-page sequence that starts off Chapter Eight in which author Scott Anderson - one of the world's top war correspondents - catalogues in dispassionate, jaw-dropping detail exactly what happens in real-life when a bomb hits. He contrasts this very sobering reality to the way the event is depicted in the movies ("typically in movies, a shell explodes on open ground and anyone unlucky enough to be standing nearby is flung - or sommersaulted, or cartwheeled, depending on the desired cinematic effect to their death.") If you want to see what makes Anderson stand out as a writer...if you're in a bookstore, open up to that chapter (p. 168 in US hardback) and read those three pages. You know those thoughts come directly from Anderson's life experience. It's chilling stuff.

You can see that my ardor for the book as a whole though is sort of lukewarm. My wife asked "so why did you read it?" Because, Anderson's master work - "The Man Who Tried to Save the World" - is among the best books of all time. That's not hyberbole. I consider it one of the best books ever written, and I cherish the fact that I experienced it. So, if Scott Anderson writes a book, I'm reading it. Thanks, Scott, for everything.

In the 1980s, David Richards, a mid-level diplomat in Kutar, a former British colony, enjoys his work, an extensive social life, frequent missives to the State Department and interesting people, including a senior British diplomat and his wife; but when there is secret and unexpected activity in the north, the city of Laradan is caught in the middle, the port in the south unaware that trouble is brewing. The usual military officials and bureaucrats continue to misread the signs of unrest until there is a rebel insurgency in the north that cuts off all outside congress, a massacre of innocents and all foreigners compelled to leave at once. Only a few remain, Richards, Nigel Mahew, the British diplomat, Stewart McBride, an American journalist, Paolo Alfani and Amira Chalesani, an aristocrat who has so far spurned Richards' advances.

Isolated in Laradan with no idea when or if aid will come, the disparate group gathers at the Moonlight Hotel, a dilapidated structure whose owner envisioned better days of tourism and commerce. As the military blunders continue under the direction of American Colonel Munn, the besieged stragglers cling to the hope of rescue, while their situation grows increasingly dire. The scenario is all too familiar, foreign hostages at the mercy of a rebel faction enjoying new-found power, all the more dangerous for the unpredictability of the circumstances. The rebels prove far more creative and resourceful than expected, cutting the group off from communication with the rest of the world, the citizens of Laradan held hostage to the whims of the insurgents currently in power: "This was a place where money held greater sway than God or politics, where harmony was largely a matter of self-interest."

The easy commerce of a remote city in an exotic locale is fraught with danger in the sudden turn of events and Davis is put to a test far beyond anything he could have imagined, eventually imprisoned by the rebels. In order to survive, he must resort to desperate measures, kept alive in the hopes of seeing Amira again, but resigned to his fate. The author imbues this Middle Eastern kingdom with menace, changing the landscape from enterprise, diplomacy and social intercourse to complete chaos, flipping a switch from idyllic to nightmarish in a few short days as an adventure in a foreign land becomes an unpredictable exercise in terror. Part love story, part escape-from-peril, the author blends personalities and cultures in an ensemble of mixed agendas and temporary hubris, from "tribals to terrorists to liberators in less than six months", geopolitical expedience the order of the day. Luan Gaines/2006.

David Williams is an American diplomat in the third-world country of Kutar. Picture Iraq but a third of the size and without the oil and you get the idea. Kutar has insurgent problems stemming from an age-old power struggle between its two main cultures: the coastal people and the mountain people. One day a gung-ho Marine colonel, Allen Munn, urges the Kutaran government to "get tough" with the mountain people. He draws up a plan of attack, and when things go horrendously wrong he makes his excuses and gets the hell out of there. The insurgents go on a rampage and soon have the capital under siege. The American government withdraws its presence except for Williams, who agrees to stay on as the lone American representative. Williams moves into the Moonlight Hotel with a couple of like-minded souls: Nigel, a British envoy, Paolo, an Italian businessman, Amira, a Westernized Kutaran, Stewart, a reporter, and an old Romanian lady called the "Contessa", and together they watch as insurgent guns pound the capital into rubble. Williams knows he's the last hope for the beleaguered Kutaran government, but as his desperate pleas for aid fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to change the course of the war...

Moonlight Hotel is mainly a critique of our ADD-tastic foreign policy with a little bit of parody thrown in (whenever Munn opens his mouth). Anderson, a war reporter, is at his best when playing to his strengths. He spends a couple of pages describing the effects of artillery bombardment on a crowded city and it's chilling for its frankness: you can't make this stuff up, you have to experience it firsthand. His depiction of the US government - unwieldy and even inept - was true in the 80's and just as true today. If the rest of the book was just as strong I would give it 5 stars, but I didn't have much interest in Williams - the banality of good - or his predictable war-zone love affair with Amira. Still, a respectable showing by a man better known for his war reportage. Pick it up.

I read this book in one sitting. Not that I intended to but that is how quickly the story grabbed me. What elevates it above mere fiction is that imbedded in this gripping Graham Greene-esque tale is an equally Graham Greene level of insight into America's latest Wilsonian foray into the international arena. Moonlight Hotel just smacks of this generation's Quiet American - only told with more humor. Some of the scenes with the Col. later in the story are a scream. With this book and Triage, his first novel, Anderson is carving out a remarkable body of fiction.

This is one of the finest novels I've read in a long time, perhaps passed over by critics and others because its author is more known for his cutting edge wartime reporting. The book really conveys what it's like to be there in the midst of the manipulation, secrecy, and cynicism that goes on in the thoughts and actions of people and institutions with the power to change the world. Far more insightful than a lot of what passes for news from these troubled regions. The Moonlight Hotel is in a fictional country but read this tale to learn what it's like in hot spots like Iraq, Afghanistan, and whatever comes next.

Book was purchased as a gift, having heard nothing negative, assume it was enjoyed. Perhaps I'll borrow it and then have an opinion.