The Enders Hotel: A Memoir / Edition 1

by Brandon R. Schrand

Overview

In the center of the rural boomtown of Soda Springs, Idaho, stands the historic Enders Hotel, Café, and Bar, a three-story brick building that has been many things to many people. But to one family who bought it as an attempt to renew themselves it was home, a place they desperately tried to hold on to and yet, after seventeen years of living there, the very place from which they wanted to escape.

Growing up under its leaking roof, Brandon R. Schrand watched a cast of broken characters pass through the hotel doors—an alcoholic artist, a forgotten boxing champ, an ex-con, a homeless family—and tried to find his own identity among those revolving faces. Haunted by a father he had never seen, he tested the faces of those drifters for familiarity. Winner of the River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, The Enders Hotel reveals the promises and warnings of western boomtown life—stories of alcoholism, murder, betrayal, hope, and finally, redemption.

Brandon R. Schrand is the coordinator of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Idaho. His work has appeared in such periodicals as The Utne Reader, Tin House, Green Mountains Review, Colorado Review, River Teeth, Ecotone, and other journals.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803217690
Publisher:	Bison Original
Publication date:	05/01/2008
Series:	River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Brandon R. Schrand is the coordinator of the MFA program in creative writing at the University of Idaho. His work has appeared in such periodicals as The Utne Reader, Tin House, Green Mountains Review, Colorado Review, River Teeth, Ecotone, and other journals.

Table of Contents

1. Restless Men
2. Reconstruction
3. A Storied History
4. A Traceable Past
5. Patterns
6. Initiation
7. Guns
8. Apparitions
9. Generations
10. The Boxer
11. Boom and Bust
12. Boys
13. The Artist
14. The Texans
15. The Knock of Experience
16. The Trapper
17. The Ex-Con and the Ex-Professor
18. Legacy
19. Two Men in a Car
20. Substitute
21. The Man Missing
22. A New Year
23. Requiem
24. Visitors
25. The Hand Out
26. Apprentice
27. The Man on the Stairs
28. The Man in the Phone Booth
29. The Waitress
30. Father to Son
31. A Common Story
32. Bear
33. Other Places
34. Trouble
35. The Cowboy
36. B.J.
37. After Labor Day
38. New Management
39. College
40. Enders
Epilogue

Editorial Reviews

"Whether comic books developed his acute insights, or familiarity with people on the move to somewhere else, Schrand has a compassionate understanding of the way we try to renew ourselves through the place we call home."—Renée E. D'Aoust, Notre Dame Review

Notre Dame Review - Renée E. D’Aoust

"A satisfying read."—C. K. Crigger, Roundup Magazine

Roundup Magazine - C. K. Crigger

"Schrand proves himself a top-notch yarn spinner with this richly described, poignant memoir."—Jenny Shank, NewWest.net

NewWest.net - Jenny Shank

“Schrand’s deeply textured memoir of life in a small Idaho town boasts a rich palette of glittering iridescent hues, somber earth tones, and delicate, evocative washes. . . . Schrand’s memoir sings, stirring the senses as much as the soul.”—Whitney Scott, Booklist (starred review)

Booklist - Whitney Scott

"Whether comic books developed his acute insights, or familiarity with people on the move to somewhere else, Schrand has a compassionate understanding of the way we try to renew ourselves through the place we call home."—Renée E. D'Aoust, Notre Dame Review

Notre Dame Review - Ren�e E. D'Aoust

"Whether comic books developed his acute insights, or familiarity with people on the move to somewhere else, Schrand has a compassionate understanding of the way we try to renew ourselves through the place we call home."—Renée E. D'Aoust, Notre Dame Review

Notre Dame Review

"A satisfying read."—C. K. Crigger, Roundup Magazine

— C. K. Crigger

Roundup Magazine

"Schrand proves himself a top-notch yarn spinner with this richly described, poignant memoir."—Jenny Shank, NewWest.net

— Jenny Shank

NewWest.net

“Schrand’s deeply textured memoir of life in a small Idaho town boasts a rich palette of glittering iridescent hues, somber earth tones, and delicate, evocative washes. . . . Schrand’s memoir sings, stirring the senses as much as the soul.”—Whitney Scott, Booklist (starred review)

— Whitney Scott

Booklist

“Gorgeously written and generous in its telling, Schrand’s memoir takes us deep into the heart of a boomtown gone bust and a family surviving on little more than stubbornness and a desire to do the next right thing. The Enders Hotel is a heartbroken love song to a time gone by, a place lost, and a people whose longings ring true long after the last page ends.”

—Kim Barnes, author of In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country

Kim Barnes