Care of "The Grand"

About this book

A novel written on the eve of WWII, set in A british provincial Grand Hotel with seven main characters and a week time frame. This novel is very important because it represents one of the first times (1939) where several homosexual characters have a main role in the story and are portrayed in a naturalistic sympathetic way. The author had previously worked in a hotel so knew inside out the subject he was recreating in the novel. He intended this novel to be a British realistic answer to the phoney melodrama of "Grand Hotel" by the German author Viki Baum.