Jeselnik Book Club: 'The Glass Hotel' Book Review + Q&A

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Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Hey, Anthony Jeselnik here with September's Jeselnik Book Club Recap of The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. I'm excited to talk about this book. It is a difficult one. It's a great story, but it's all over the place. They go year to year. I'm going to be looking at my notes a lot. Before we get into the book and how much I love this book, I think we should talk about the book. I think we should talk about the book. I think we should talk about what's different. Last month, if you have listened to all of these, I announced there would be some changes coming that were not mine to announce. I am working under a higher power. At this point, I am here at the ringer. Some people know what that is. Everyone I know knows what that is. Some people did not. It's Spotify. It's basically Spotify, but it's like the cool version of Spotify. It's not TV. It's HBO. Think about it like that. It's not TV. It's HBO. People wondered why I came here to the network. They came to me. When I decided to do this book club at the beginning of the year, I was hoping for the best and preparing for the worst. I didn't know if anyone would be into it, if people would watch these videos, if people would like the videos, if people would continue, if it would grow. And I was shocked at how much people were engaged with Jessalynik Book Club from the beginning. I was even more surprised, pleasantly surprised, at how much I enjoyed doing Jessalynik Book Club. The first video in January, I'm shooting in my manager's conference room on an iPhone and loved it. Did it in one take, did it in under an hour, was pleasantly surprised at the questions I was asked, felt good, and talked about the book. I enjoyed reading a book I loved for the second time and bringing my knowledge to people who were reading it for the first time. But I immediately knew that I enjoyed this and I was happy that the audience stayed with me. And then as we kept going, I just kept enjoying it more and more. The audience would grow. And pretty quickly, two or three months in, the ringer came to me. I assumed I would do this for a year, get 12 of these done, see if I still enjoyed it. And then maybe shop it around as a podcast, maybe. And at the time, it would have been a monthly thing, just like I was doing. I enjoy my life as a touring stand-up comedian. In fact, go to Jessalynik.com right now, anthonyjessalynik.com and look up the tour dates. They're selling out and I'm having a hell of a time on tour. I love my new hour. I have a job. This was like a side hustle. But I liked it the more that I did it. And the ringer came to me and said, make it a podcast. And we took months to negotiate. Negotiate because they were thinking, hey, do you want to do it weekly? And I'm like, no, a monthly book club is, that's how book clubs work. And then a couple months in negotiation, one of my good friends who's going to be on the podcast coming up was coming through town on a book tour with his new book. And he said, would you come to Skylight Books in LA and interview me as part of my book tour? And I had never done that before. I had never interviewed an author. If you know my podcast experience, I've never interviewed anyone. But I went and did this interview at a bookstore and had the time of my life. It was funny. It was fun. It was easy to do. It felt organic and natural the way this book club has felt natural to me. And I love doing it so much and had so much fun. And my friend was like, oh, you did a great job. I've never done a book interview like this. It was almost like a book roast. And I was like, oh, that's just how I talk. And after that interview, I realized I could do this every week. And so I signed with The Ringer to do a weekly podcast. We'll do four of these a month. And I'm not going to expect you to read four books a month. But the goal is still to get you to read. The goal is still to get you to read 12 books a year. Again, my audience is 85% men. I'm pitching two guys. But the ladies, you're welcome to. You know, you're welcome to follow along. And again, we've picked very diverse books here at Jessalyn Book Club. I think everyone is enjoying it. But I will also. I will also be talking to people who have new books coming out. People who wrote books that were in my last year's top 10 are going to come on. And I'm very excited to talk to these authors. I'm honored that they want to come on and talk to me. I hope I can sell some books for them. I hope that by listening to us talk, you are not only entertained, but it makes you want to buy the book. I think that. Or read the book. I think that the more you follow along with the book club as it goes to weekly here at The Ringer, that you will just. Think about reading more. With the book club, it's like I'm giving you 12 books to read. But if you're hearing about a different book every week, you will learn more of what's out there. And maybe you'll want to read 14 books a year. Maybe you'll be like, oh, that one sounds good. It sounds better than the one before it. I don't really care. I'm going to be giving you a lot. I'm going to be throwing you a new book every week with either a friend I'm talking to. We got Greg Rosenthal coming up next week. Spoiler alert. And we'll be talking about Life of M a little bit. And then just kind of messing around. But then I have authors coming on talking about their own books. Again, I'm not expecting you to read everything before they come out. Sometimes we're talking to them before the book actually hits the streets. That's how far inside I am. And I just love being at The Ringer. Again, we did not shop this around. The Ringer came to me. I knew a couple people here. And the more people that I have met, the more I have enjoyed this. I know the names of five people on staff. Paige, Noah, Daniel, Mags, Bill. That's unheard of for me on a staff. And I have gotten no notes from The Ringer. So I am thrilled to be here at The Ringer. Nothing is going to change book club wise except we're in a nicer room. I've got support. I've got authors coming up that I cannot believe want to come talk to me that I never would have been able to schedule, put things together. So I think things are just going to get a lot better here at The Ringer. You can still go to my website, anthonyjesselink.com, put in your email address. I'll keep sending that email. The book club itself is not going to change. Once a month, you'll send in your emails. I will answer them just like this. But every week, I think it's going to keep getting better with authors, friends, celebrities, people talking about reading in a way that will make you want to read even more than you are with the book club. I think that the more entertaining this podcast is, and I've got a whole team of people trying to make it as entertaining as possible. I mean, it's almost impossible to get an entertaining conversation out of Greg Rosenthal. We're going to find a way with the team that we have, and you have me. So I'm going to be recapping these books at the end of every month, and we're going to have a weekly podcast on Wednesdays talking books, talking to authors, that I am thrilled to talk to. People are coming out of the woodwork trying to get on this show, and we haven't even premiered yet. This is the premiere, so I'm turning down people that I'm just like, you're not good enough. You haven't won the accolades that you need to sit across from me and talk to me about your book. And I'm going to read all these books. I'll be reading everything. So I'm only going to give you books that I really liked. You can read them all if you want and be a superstar, or you can just read the 12 books we've got in the regular Jessalyn Book Club. But we're not for the long haul. I'm on a one-year deal with two options that The Ringer has. I'm allowed to quit whenever I want. But again, I didn't start this for the money. I'm not doing it for the money now. I make a lot of money doing stand-up comedy. I won't tell you how much I'm making here, but when I told my business manager how much I was making here, he did not put it in my annual budget. That's what we're working with. This is still for the love of the game. I just now have a great support system. And I haven't lost Miss Kim. Miss Kim's right there. Miss Kim used to be standing behind an iPhone. Now she's sitting over there in a comfortable seat waiting for me to mess something up so she can correct me. So we just have, it's just going to get better. We are not changing. We are accelerating. And I'm excited to be here for now. Well, I can see in a moment, a month, me just blowing my top. And, uh, and ending all of this, but for now I'm thrilled. Uh, so I hope you guys enjoy me at the ringer. I hope you, uh, continue to, you can continue to watch the show on YouTube. Like you have been the other episodes will just be on YouTube. If you're a member of Spotify, if that's how they call it again, I've never listened to a podcast in my life. I've never watched one in my life, but you can continue to watch it on my YouTube channel. If you go to Spotify, you can now listen to it as a podcast and watch it, but you can listen to it on anywhere else that you get your podcasts. So we are just getting a little bit bigger. I would like to have a little more reach than we did before. And that's why I am here at the ringer. But again, there were no other suitors. It was like, do I want to just keep doing this in my living room with Ms. Kim, or do I want to go somewhere with a bigger reach? And I think I'm going to bring the ringer a whole new audience. Okay. People who wear graduation caps, on the regular, are going to be watching the ringer now. So I think they're happy to have me, a real comedian, and I'm happy to be here for sure. So that is why I'm at the ringer. But now let's get to the real star of the month. That is the Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel. They told me to describe the cover of the book, The Lawyers, in order to not get sued. I think that's very funny. So I'm going to do it. It's a little island. You don't even see the Glass Hotel. Maybe it's just see-through, but we got an island here, and it says The Glass Hotel by Emily St. John Mandel, bestselling author of Station Eleven. Again, this is one of my favorite books of hers. She had written Station Eleven, which is the first book I read of hers. She wrote a kind of a sequel to this called The Sea of Tranquility, and she's got a new one out right now called Exit Party that came out two weeks ago that is an absolute banger. Might be one of them. Might have surpassed The Glass Hotel for my favorite, uh, in the Mandelverse, as if you will. And we want to get Emily St. John Mandel on the show at some point. She's, uh, she's in New York. No plans to come to LA, and I don't do Zoom. We don't do Zoom here at Jessel McBook Club. That's not a thing. Let's get into The Glass Hotel. Let's do a plot recap. And again, this is going to be tough. This, this book takes place in like six different times throughout, and they jump around. So I'm going to kind of just go off what I remember, what really sticks out to me. I'll try to get the years right. We start, and it's, I think the book starts with, we start at the end. It is Vincent drowning. Vincent's falling over a boat. And again, it's very sensory, this opening chapter. She's hitting the cold water. She loses her breath. She doesn't know which way is up or down. Her life is flashing before her eyes. And you don't know this is her death just yet. Uh, it could, if she could get saved at some point, you just know that she is in trouble. She is in the water and she is looking over her life. Cut to, uh, Vincent. It's a night. Now this is 2018 that she is drowning, falling off this boat. And I think this book came out in 2018. Then we go back to 1994. Vincent is a teenager. She is at school and she is writing with a acid tipped marker, something I did not know existed on a window of the school. She's writing, sweep me up. Uh, just a, it was either a song lyric. she liked i think it's some kind of uh there was a a philosopher knoss guard if i'm saying that correctly knoss guard i don't know i'm not into philosophy but i have seen the notes that she writes sweep me up on this an acid pen you can't fix that you got to get a new window uh her brother her half brother paul comes around the corner sees her doing this too late to stop her they go home the school's already called uh the house vincent's in trouble she's getting suspended and paul is also in trouble and paul has been uh kind of in and out of rehab for heroin and they're not happy with paul for letting this happen they don't think it's a good idea to have them together paul kind of gets banished and uh vincent goes to live with an aunt i believe uh in either vancouver or toronto i want to say vancouver because it goes to see the aunt in vancouver this original thing is happening on an island off of vancouver uh beautiful place where they are starting to build a glass hotel this is again in 1994 let me cut to 1999 this is one of my favorite parts of the whole book paul is now he's been out of rehab a few times he has been addicted to heroin he is now 23 years old as like a freshman in college i think university of toronto and he's it's hard for him to make friends again he's older than everybody else and he's a former heroin addict they're not the most fun people to hang with so he's kind of lonely he's looking for something to do he goes to see a band he goes to see this band called baltica that will play a factor and he immediately falls in love he just thinks they're okay but he falls in love with the lead singer this gorgeous woman who plays sings and plays the violin he's into them afterwards he tries to talk them up a little bit she's one of those women who's so gorgeous she knows everyone's hitting on them and she kind of blows them off but they say hey we go hang out at this bar sometimes that's cool paul a couple days later goes to this bar and he's going to this bar i think tuesday nights is where it's at he scores some ecstasy off a stranger he gets like four pills he takes one of them and has a real bad trip he has an awful time he feels sick but he's like maybe it's just me maybe i just had a bad reaction to it uh he gets they send him out of the bar after closing like what if he took didn't agree with you and he's like you're right i should i'm better off sober goes a couple weeks later to the bar sees baltica they're there it's like three it's a three-man band uh it's annika i believe and then a guy named charlie woo is the keyboardist and then another guy and they're friendly to paul they remember him from meeting him paul asks out annika and she's like no but it never hurts to ask they're like okay he's like hey would you guys like some ecstasy he's like i bought these a while ago it's not really my thing i don't sell drugs i don't want to sell them but would you like these and annika's like oh i took those like a week ago she kind of gives the thumbs up that these are okay to take she takes one charlie woo takes two and then charlie woo dies like an hour later his heart stops he dies on the dance floor which i think to me was like insane to me to start the book out this way even more than vincent drowning or vincent graffiting a window is that i can see this happening in college you get some drugs from someone you pass them out to somebody and someone dies because of you he feels horrible and he takes the fuck off which is understandable he's not doing that well at toronto the people from baltica don't know him they only know his name paul he just leaves like that night i think it's like a night or two before new year's eve he flees the city calls his aunt trying to look for vincent who he has not talked to in a while or in years maybe the aunt says vincent's moved out vincent's so independent i couldn't keep her here she didn't finish high school she left he tracks her down finds vincent living with her roommate i think it's the same girl who was with her when she drew on the window on the on the glass window in high school wrote sweep me up and they go out to a party and paul is haunted paul feels like shit from killing a random keyboardist and wherever they go they go into a nightclub and he hears a remix of baltica and he's like i've got to get out of here he goes outside he's just shivering in the cold because he can't go in they go to another club and he sees charlie woo the guy who died he sees like the guy dancing in the club or just staring at him he's like it's a packed club is it him it's not this is like a theme throughout the book of just ghosts of the people that you're either killed flat out or whose lives you have affected are haunting you that guilt kind of never leaves you and chases you down we're going to go back and go forward into the future to uh 2005 uh oh and you know what real quick while this is while this story is being told about paul uh you know killing a guy accidentally with the wrong drugs and uh going to see his sister fucking things up with his sister when you should have been looking out for her and she's vandalizing windows he is talking to a therapist he is talking to someone where it seems like he's on the other side of things and you can't tell here how far on the other side you know he like gets away with killing a guy but you don't know if it's taking place in like the far future or just like a couple years but at this is sober and is looking back with the clarity of someone who has gone through uh their addiction so you can and i like that uh when that happens in a book because you know at least paul gets out of this okay and it gives you kind of different perspective on the story that he's telling we're going to go to 2005 now okay it's it's it's six years after paul and vincent have reconnected and it's a tenuous reconnection they are kind of envious they they don't really get along i think paul's dad cheated on his mom with a beautiful hippie and the hippie had vincent so he kind of blames vincent for kind of breaking up the marriage she's a half-sister she is beautiful and self-possessed and confident these are things that paul lacks himself uh he probably thinks vincent would be an amazing musician if she wanted to be but he just can't believe that she doesn't have the insecurities that he has while he's taking heroin and they don't really get a chance to connect as kids i think that's a good point i think that's a good point i think they have one conversation where he tells her that he's been in and out of rehab for heroin and she goes wide-eyed but he can't give her more he's so ashamed that he just kind of leaves the room and they they don't talk again until 1999 we're not all worried about y2k and shit but she is cool and you go to 2005 and now paul and vincent are working in oh i gotta go back again vincent's mom dies vincent's mom dies in a kayaking accident or possible suicide vincent's mom goes out in a kayak she knows what she's doing she lives on vancouver island she goes kayaking all the time and then one day she's gone one day she goes out and they find the body like a day or two later and she knew what she was doing so everyone it's a mystery they really don't can't say it's a suicide but they can't say it's an accident either and that really fucks vincent up and that's the reason that paul is even there with her that's the reason she's drawing on windows like she's having a hard time because of the loss of her mother so now we're in 2005 we are in the glass hotel it has a name it doesn't matter no one cares what everyone calls it the glass hotel it's one of those places that's in the middle of nowhere it's on this island in vancouver that's almost impossible to get to and they only have a few rooms it's just like very very rich people going into beautiful nature but not really having to go into nature they can go on hikes they can go on boat rides but they're just in this like ultimate luxury hotel uh in the middle of nowhere where they have like a total privacy from the outside world and in this night uh paul is uh is working there as kind of like a like a jack of all trades i don't know what you would call the job but he kind of just he mops up he cleans things house manager is the wrong word but he does a bunch of different odd jobs vincent is the bartender vincent is a babe and she's just like a high-end bartender at this job uh there's a guy named walter who runs the hotel who's in charge of it they need to talk him in to taking this remote job but he finds that he loves the hotel and there's a guy named leon prevant who is a guy who works in shipping who takes his wife there i think it's their anniversary he has kind of insomnia he's up late at night and uh one night they're there and all of a sudden there's like people are freaking out walter's telling the side of the story who runs the hotel and leon prevant is in the is in the lobby having a drink and he sees on the window all of a sudden it just kind of appears it just says why don't you why don't you swallow broken glass in giant letters on a luxury hotel on this big glass wall almost why don't you swallow broken glass leon's horrified vincent sees it she's crying uh walter is horrified like someone fucked with my hotel i can't believe someone would do this and it's a horrifying message that no one understands yet and some people will never understand walter's horrified leon's horrified they're getting him a drink vincent's like crying paul comes in and sees sees what's happened they're already hiding it they're very good at taping over the wall putting up plants and paul walks in and walter says oh paul says what happened trying to feign uh you know like he doesn't know what's going on again spoiler alert paul did this you will find out shortly paul's the one who took an acid marker and wrote this and uh they say someone wrote why don't you swallow broken glass on the wall and leon prevant is like why don't you swallow broken glass in giant letters on the wall and paul's like oh did that guy see it points to leon and they're like what what why do you care he's like um jonathan al-qaeda's jonathan al-qaeda's didn't he see it jonathan al-qaeda's is a guest i think maybe even the owner of the hotel who is visiting that night but his flight gets delayed and so paul's plan of writing this on the wall so that uh so that jonathan al-qaeda's can see it is foiled almost immediately he confuses the two people jonathan al-qaeda's sees this uh this message that has been sent you don't know who told paul to write this but walter figures it out pretty goddamn quick and goes and confronts paul and says i know you did this paul tries to say no i didn't do it and he's like no i know you did you can either leave right now pack your things and get on the next boat or i can call the cops and paul's like no don't call the cops he's like sorry i had a lot of debt like it's meaning like someone paid him to do this but walter doesn't even care he's just like get out we're gonna fix this later on that night jonathan al-qaeda's comes to the hotel he talks to leon previn who's still freaked out about the window but they talk about money jonathan al-qaeda's is an investor he is a bernie madoff uh in every sense of the word and that's like a spoiler and not a spoiler uh i couldn't name another financier other than bernie madoff uh but they start talking and jonathan uh decides he's gonna invest jonathan al-qaeda starts i think walter invests with jonathan al-qaeda's he just gives people confidence and he lets them when he talks about money he makes it seem like he's doing everyone a favor like hey we have like a tight-knit team of people we invest for but we do very well and we'll let you in you know what i like you i like the cut of your jib i'm gonna let you in whole thing's a pyramid scheme uh he starts talking to vincent tips vincent is like hey let's get married or say we're married they aren't actually married but al-qaeda's like plays it up enough that i think they were wedding rings and jonathan al-qaeda's own daughter whose name is claire believes they are married like he lies to her and says we are actually married jonathan al-qaeda's had been married previously to a woman i want to say her name was suzanne i got it right thank you miss kim uh her name is suzanne she gets sick uh it's like the love of a love of his life she ends up dying and i think shortly after her death he's his mourning period's over he meets vincent and he's like hey let's make this strictly transactional i will take care of you you will live in my place in connecticut you'll be like available to me but you're kind of just kind of arm candy he's 34 years older than her i believe which is problematic uh but she's so rich that he's like he's like i don't care vincent takes off i don't know if she even knows that paul got fired like they're just gone paul and vincent don't really see each other again ever uh or for a we're away from the glass hotel now we're in the city we're in connecticut we're in the world of the rich where vincent is kind of bored she wakes up during the day she goes into manhattan she works out she gets a haircut she goes shopping she's a friend named uh morella who's married to a guy named faizal who's like a prince faizal uh invests money with uh al-qaeda's and she hangs out with morella mostly and they talk about kind of like what rich people talk about how it's kind of boring to be rich how you're just surrounded by people all the time who want things from you and serve you and do things but she is enjoying herself and enjoying her new life she buys a camera and uh she will make home videos of like five minute videos something she used to do when she was a kid but she now does it from the rooftop of these amazing places now we are going to cut back a little bit we're going to go back to 1958 we talk about guilt we talk about family in this book 1958 there's a guy named lucas al-qaeda's who is jonathan al-qaeda's older brother and he is an artist and possibly a great one and he goes around painting but he's a heroin addict people kind of know he's damaged they try to stay away from him he meets a woman named uh olivia who is also a painter and they decide to model for each other i think she models for him he models for her and she paints like her masterpiece her best painting of uh of lucas al-qaeda's and but it's clear that he's a junkie from the painting he takes his shirt off she kind of shows the needle marks and when they put when the uh when the picture gets out there and is put in a gallery he's furious at her for exposing him and he dies 10 months later he overdoses in an alley somewhere a brief moment of lucas al-qaeda's and jonathan al-qaeda's who's much younger looks up to his brother tries to bond with his brother but his brother's so far gone the parents are it's clear to the parents that uh that their son's a junkie and they try to save him but they can't uh but now uh olivia has this painting of uh of lucas al-qaeda's and eventually it sells for two hundred thousand dollars she meets jonathan al-qaeda's now she's a much older woman i think they might she's not that much older than jonathan because jonathan's already older but uh she sells this painting for like two hundred thousand dollars she's been a broke artist her whole life uh jonathan al-qaeda's admits that he's the one who bought it he loves his picture of his brother and he's like and i'll invest your money for you so they become friends it's like his friend in the art world and i think it kind of just goes to show how jonathan al-qaeda's preys on everyone he doesn't care if they're like a dear friend of his or just some random guy he will take your money then we're going to cut to 2009 uh jonathan al-qaeda's is in prison something has happened happened uh he's in there for 170 years in prison and he starts going through something called counter life like vincent's gone it's just jonathan al-qaeda's in this prison that is a minimal security he's an old guy who's in there for like white collar crime even though he ruined many lives uh he talks about people who killed themselves when they found out about his fraud when his pyramid scheme collapsed uh in the financial financial collapse of 2008 everything got exposed he was bringing in new clients to pay to the old clients and once it got exposed and they were overextended he lost everything everyone lost everything olivia finds out that and again i'm skipping around but olivia finds out she can only stay in her apartment for like two more months and then she has to go and live with her sister people i think faisal his friend and husband of morella kills himself immediately some people have heart attacks when they find this out people are like oh my god he's ruined lives and in this counter life uh jonathan al-qaeda sees these people walking around the prison sometimes they'll talk to him he'll have conversations with faisal he will have fantasies in this counter life of what if he had escaped that day they kind of know this is coming to an end he has a fantasy about uh opening up the windows and getting on with the window washers bribing them putting on a white suit going down like james bond and leaving the country then we cut to 2013 so we know we know al-qaeda is in jail and then we cut to 2013 vincent is now a cook at sea she works on like a shipping vessel with a bunch of different guys and she's the cook she just gets up cooks them breakfast lunch dinner and then has free time on the boat uh she enjoys this life she's cut her hair she looks different she kind of tries tries to leave everything behind they do a flashback of her life where when uh she tries to make kind of stay in the city after the uh the crime goes down and again we're going to find out all about this crime in like a couple couple pages but it just shows her she tries to she becomes a bartender in new york vincent is a bartender in new york and doing her best to make ends meet she's a normal person and fine with it but mirella comes in mirella mirella mirella mirella comes in and pretends to ignore her like pretends like she is not there will not speak to her as if she is complicit in her former husband fake husband's crimes and meryl's like okay i gotta get the hell out of here and wants to go to a life at sea and is enjoying her life at sea she even has a boyfriend on the boat and i think she works like nine months and then has three months where she goes away and since she doesn't have a family she doesn't go home like the other guys she goes like iceland for three months she goes to thailand for three months the crew loves her she's very popular and is enjoying her life go back to 2015 now go move forward to 2015 al-qaeda is losing his mind in prison he is older he talks to a journalist who interviews him uh he starts seeing more ghosts as more of these people are dying he sees olivia one day he's like what happened to olivia asks a journalist and they're like oh olivia she died a month ago so he's losing it more and more in this counter life regretting decisions thinking about the people that he hurt his brother uh we go to uh 2008 and this is right before uh right before everything gets figured out where vincent and jonathan al-qaeda's marriage isn't going well their relationship's not going well but they're on a boat with olivia and olivia mentions going to the brooklyn brooklyn academy of music and it's like oh that sounds interesting goes and sees that her brother paul paul pops up is now a composer of some renown and is doing a concert at the brooklyn hall of music and she's like a brooklyn academy music and she's like oh i've got to go to this i'm excited to see my brother uh for the first time in forever go sits in the front row the brother comes out and he's playing baltic baltica songs remixed and he's showing videos that are vincent's videos from when she was a kid her like five minute videos and she feels betrayed she's not honored by this she is like that he would do it, and when, and Paul notices her right away, I don't think she notices that he notices her, but, but the second song, she gets up and leaves, and never sees him again, it's like, furious that he would steal her stuff, he feels bad that he would steal, that, uh, that she knows, but she wasn't doing anything with it, he, like, found it amongst her things, but it's now, like, his guilt is leading him to just remix Baltica songs as a composer, and play his sister, who he let down, uh, videos behind him. Now, now it gets exciting. Now, after this, and now, after Vincent never sees a brother again, we get to the night of the Christmas party in 2018. Jonathan Alcaides is very aware of what's about to happen, and he's trying to, like, pretend like it's not for as long as he can, but there are people in his office who are, are in on the scheme. There's, like, two floors of the office, his daughter, Jonathan's daughter Claire works on one, and he's got a bunch of people working on another. Claire has no idea that there's any kind of pyramid scheme going on, but she's starting to figure it out. There has been a, a journalist a while back named, uh, Ella Kaspersky, who, one night, Jonathan tries to tell about how good he is as a investor, and how his investments always make money. She looks into this, he thinks she's drunker than she is, she looks into it, and is like, you're a fraud, tells people that, that, that he's a fraud. Tries to go to the papers, they don't really believe it, like, it's before Bernie made off, and people aren't as, it's not as sexy a story. So he kind of gets away with it just by reputation. Now that's coming, crumbling down on him. Uh, all the people he works with in his office are, like, shredding documents, and they all have different reactions to it. I think Kasperitis is just, or Kasperitis, um, Alcaides is, like, just trying to keep his chin up. He's going through with the Christmas party. He's got to tell Vincent. They bring Vincent into the office. One of my favorite lines of Vincent's in the whole thing, they bring in Vincent to the office, his second-in-command Harvey is there, and Claire is there, the daughter. And Claire's furious. Claire's just now finding out. They bring in Vincent, they tell her, hey, this is all coming down, uh, this is a pyramid, this is a pyramid scheme. And the daughter says, uh, they tell her what it is, and it's like, oh, you're running a pyramid scheme? And Claire says, you better not have known about this. How do you know what a pyramid scheme is? And Vincent says, of course I knew nothing about this. I never would have gotten involved with this guy if I knew. I know what a pyramid scheme is because I'm not a fucking idiot. And even, even, uh, Jonathan Alcaides is like, there she is. Like, this is the girl that I, that I wanted to spend as much of my life with as I could. The different, the different employees all have different reactions. Harvey and the, there's like, there's Harvey, Joelle, Enrico, Oscar, and Simone are the employees in the office, and they all get their own little moment. During this collapse of the office during the Christmas party, where Harvey start, just starts admitting to everything, writing down all of his crimes in a yellow legal pad to give to the FBI. Joelle denies it all, denies anything happened. The next day she takes her kids to, like, different toy stores around New York and buys them things, but clearly something's wrong and she's upset. So he tries to make it, like, one last day for her kids. Like, isn't it special we got hot chocolate? Isn't it special you got this giraffe? But the kids are going to think of it as the worst day of their life, because their mom's about to go to jail, and she tried to play it off without telling them the truth. It's a very tragic, very fun little tidbit in that story. Enrico leaves the country immediately. Enrico's like, fuck this, I'm not going to jail. He goes to Mexico and just disappears, changes his name. Oscar does something a little different. Oscar fantasizes about leaving the country. Oscar does a lot of Google searches for countries that don't have an extradition. And then he follows Vincent out of the Christmas party. She's now left, she's mad at her husband and leaves the Christmas party furious. Oscar follows her, seduces her, and has sex with her before he goes to jail, which I think is the coolest thing you can do if you are about to go to jail, is seduce your boss's much younger hot wife. And the next morning, Vincent wakes up and he's like, I'm going to jail. And he's like, I'm going to jail. And the next morning, Vincent wakes up. Oscar's gone. He's about to go get arrested. Vincent just takes whatever money she has in this apartment they have in New York and beats it. And the next time you see her, she's a bartender. There was a secretary named Simone, who's just started there, who has no idea what's going on. They're having her buy paper shredders. She's shredding things. She knows she's probably something's up. She takes something and puts it in her pocket, like a document to help the FBI eventually. And then Claire enlists her help, Claire, the daughter, enlists Simone's help to get things out of the office so she doesn't have to go in there and deal with the FBI. And Simone's like, I don't know what I'm going to do now. This is my job. And she's like, in 20 years, you'll be telling the story at every dinner party you go to. And everyone will love this. This will be the biggest story of your life. This is a cool thing that's actually happening to you, even though it's ruining my life. And that turns out to be true. So we've already gone through the victims of this. Olivia's ruined, moves in with her sister, eventually dies. Leon Prevent, the guy from the beginning who's having a drink in the hotel, shipping magnate, the shipping company he's working with is kind of fucked. because of the collapse of 2008 financially he's got all his money with al-qaeda he's screwed his he and his wife have a house in florida they're planning to retire too they have to uh they can't sell their house uh the mortgage is killing them they're behind on the mortgage they have a camper that they had bought a few years earlier and they just abandoned the house take the camper and they end up just driving around the country working in like amazon warehouses working in at like carnivals like seasonal workers it's a terrible fate for someone coming from the corporate world that they and as they get older their knees hurt more it's more difficult for them that i think they have one of the worst fates of anyone and then uh walter who runs the hotel he was invested with al-qaeda he is ruined financially finds out the hotel is going to close but then figures out a way to talk him into becoming the caretaker of the glass hotel they're going to try to sell this but it's going to be hard to sell so for like literally 10 years of this book he lives there by himself in the woods having the time of his life not lonely absolutely loves it people check on him he talks to friends and stuff goes into the village but he just lives in this glass hotel and takes care of it and probably has the best fate of anyone in this book uh now we're going to cut back to the night of why don't you swallow broken glass and find out why that happened ella kaspersky the journalist who figured out that um al-qaeda was was a fraud is kind of fighting with him where he he's trying to trash her reputation she's trying to trash his and when suzanne or susan al-qaeda's wife is like very sick she doesn't really have her mind right they go to a restaurant and he knows she's got like money and she's like i'm going to go to a restaurant and she's like i'm going to go to a restaurant and she's like i'm going to go to a restaurant and she wants to live he's just trying to make her life happy she can barely eat at dinner and he says oh that's the journalist that's the woman who's trying to ruin me and ruin us and suzanne's like oh i'm going to say something and walks by and as they're walking over a a glass falls nearby and uh i think al-qaeda tries to be nice to the journalist and just say you know we don't like each other but you know whatever suzanne the wife picks up the glass a piece of glass and drops it into uh into ella's wine glass and says why don't you swallow broken glass and that sticks with ella kaspersky so ella kaspersky hates this guy i mean i think probably feels bad about the wife but like really hates him that he's taking advantage of all these people and right before he's finally found out uh goes to the hotel gets drunk finds paul and says you know can you help me i want to do something to this guy i want revenge would you and gets and he's like oh you know i'm going to do something to this guy i want revenge and he's like oh and he's like oh i think it's paul's idea to use a acid marker gets him to write why don't you swallow broken glass on the on the uh on the glass even though casper casper ice i'm gonna say casper right is so bad he was one of my favorite hockey players but it does not apply here uh al-qaeda's al-qaeda's never sees it but that's why and this journalist uh ella kaspersky runs into paul later on at the leave where he's performing she's like my husband's a theater director i'm here i just i remember you i had hired you to do this thing i've been following your career i'm glad you're doing well even though paul is not doing well he's still addicted to heroin he's back on it even though he's famous she apologizes explains why she wanted him to do that says that she was drinking at the time and feels bad that she kind of got him fired from his job but hopes for the best for him and when he's like do you think i'm really doing well she's like i she's like i'm really doing well she basically says i can tell you're on heroin right now and uh and he leaves the party he goes out into the streets of uh edinburgh of edinburgh and he's on heroin he collapses in a stairwell and he's not going to overdose but he's just really fucked up it's late at night he hasn't slept for two days because of travel and he's thinking about his sister and then he sees his sister vincent just kind of appear at the end of the street and you and then you flash forward to and he sees her for a second and then she's gone he's like i must just be fucked up and this is kind of the end of the book where it goes back to uh it goes back to vincent on the boat and uh you find out this because leon prevant who's been on with his wife in this camper gets a phone call from his old company saying there's been a death on one of our boats or a missing person and this woman vincent has either fallen overboard or been murdered by her boyfriend we need someone impartial who we can trust to find out uh leon pretends like he's like still with it even though he's just in a living in a fucking camper gets to new york flies to meet this boat wherever it's it's in port and he's with a cop like a former cop and leon's leon's just there just to kind of watch and they interview the boyfriend's gone the boyfriend leaves the boat and he found out it's just because he knows they would blame him but it turns out vincent after an investigation vincent was just would go to over the side of the ship in the middle of the ocean and film the waves like film the dark water thought it looked beautiful but was very not safe wasn't tied down was kind of leaning over the edge these waters get rough i mean it's like a recipe for death but she was into it uh and didn't think it was unsafe i think vincent was reckless with her life probably because of the guilt of just being beside this al-qaeda sky while he did all this and benefiting from it herself still fucked up from her mom and uh one night she's filming uh she's filming over the edge side of the boat she and her boyfriend get in a fight because he's like what you're doing isn't safe but she goes to the side of the boat anyway in a place where there's no real cameras and all of a sudden olivia's ghost shows up and olivia's ghost doesn't even mean her harm it's almost like when you die you just get to say goodbye to some people you know that you're thinking about and she's thinking about vincent when she dies vincent looks up sees olivia's ghost freaks out drops the camera tries to get the camera and falls over the side and that's curtains for vincent but vincent kind of can go she wants to see her brother she sees her brother for a second i think she goes and she sees uh al-qaeda's in jail he sees her one last time and then she finally sees her mother on the beach and that's the end of vincent's life it's the end of the book i think it's probably the best uh ending vincent could have gotten she gets peace about her mother i think it's almost a way of saying that her mother's death was an accident if vincent's death was an accident that i think most of this book of most of vincent's story is trying to deal with her mother's death and the only way she really can is to die herself uh so i hope i mean listen that's a lot i don't know how long i've been talking but that's a fucking lot to get through if i told the story in a linear fashion it may have been easier it may have been less boring but that is not uh what made this book so fun to read the first time you know i really liked it i really liked it i really liked it i really liked it i really liked it i really liked it i really thought the uh the part about uh the the christmas party and the the bernie madoff of it all coming down was more interesting to me uh i liked all these characters and i liked finding out what's happening at the very end of the book i'm sorry you find out that paul is in therapy apologizing for uh using his sister's videos he's going to do something on his own is now clean of heroin and kind of comes out okay and he's like i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry at the end of the book and i think vincent gets to see that moment before she goes into the afterlife so it's like a nice ending uh even though everyone dies um i think that's the case i hope i i hope i was good at telling you why i like this book i feel like i was just naming the same guy over and over again trust me this book is great uh it's just a tough one to describe to someone in great detail i hopefully the questions will get us uh more answers than me rambling did hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30 i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your 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Visit SimpliSafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. so let's get to the first question now you're going to see a difference in how we do things instead of just me doing questions there's going to be something over the screen that you'll uh you'll get to see question number one this is a three-parter vincent's superpower is that she tries without appearing to try how do you do it great question this is from greg rosenthal my best friend we put his question in whenever he gets one in how do uh vincent's superpower is she tries without appearing to try how do you do it first of all you got to be tall vincent's tall you got to be beautiful i'm beautiful people forgive a lot and you specialize you just kind of keep to your lane i'm like you know a joke guy a book guy you just you do what you do very well vincent's a very good cook you know but she cooks french fries all the fucking time and you just kind of keep to yourself and if you're good looking and you're quiet people will just think you know what you're doing it helps you "rank the emily st john mandel books i think it's sea of tranquility and singer's gun at the top for me you know this is a tough one for me now i would have said before i reread this book that it was glass hotel station station 11 sea of tranquility i would have put those three but now after reading this again i think it made me appreciate sea of tranquility more what i'm going to do station 11 is my number one that's the first book of hers that i read i think that's number one for me just out of a nostalgia number two i'm going to put exit party maybe you guys haven't read it yet it just came out a couple weeks ago it's her book that came out this month which is one of the reasons i chose the glass hotel exit party is a banger i really enjoyed that uh so i'm gonna go again station 11 exit party sea of tranquility and then the glass hotel not because i think it's the worst of the four uh just because having re-read it i feel like i understand it better and her books are so complex that a first reading is really fun and again i love these characters and they pop up again in uh in uh sea of tranquility in uh in exit party so they're all worth checking out and i have not read singer's gun embarrassingly enough um and then he's got a question about a ponzi scheme what's the closest you've ever been to a ponzi scheme and is it when we tried to fake sue each other for a reality show when greg and i were juniors in college we met a woman who ran a scheme where if you if you uh sue someone in small claims court for five thousand dollars or less it gets the attention in los angeles it gets the attention of those court shows like a judge judy or whatever there's a show called power of attorney and what you would get if whoever wins you get five thousand dollars from the show you wouldn't have to pay so this woman was like anthony or greg you sue anthony anthony's gonna lose the court will pay you five grand you give me one grand and you guys each split two grand we did it it worked we were like a week away from getting on the show and it was like well we got to delay it and we would rather have gone back to two lane and seen all our friends than been on the tv show so that's the closest i've been to a ponzi scheme although i did i have almost bought like apple gift cards for people and then realized that my lacrosse coach from high school was not in fact emailing me next question hi anthony i love how emily saint john mandel includes easter egg character appearances across her novels they feel less like direct sequels or prequels and more like separate events on the same intersecting timeline are there any other authors you enjoy who use a similar technique stephen king's dark tower series is an obvious example for me best bobby um yeah i love that people call it the mandel verse uh that she uses the same characters and i like what she's she's talked about this and said that she writes individual stories and if she sees an opportunity to drop a character in she will do that so you can read these out of order you can read them like as if they were meant to be read you don't really miss anything and i think that's the best way to do this i don't want homework i don't want to watch 12 marvel movies and a bunch of tv shows to see the new one i like to just be able to pick up the party without ring reading singer's gun even though there are characters that are similar to that brett easton ellis does this all the time it's either the same character or like siblings of characters that i enjoy kurt bonagat did this a lot with people i don't i mean i've read some of the stephen king dark tower series but i don't know what you're talking about with that but i know he uses the same town and people that i like when people do it it's fun but i don't want it to have to be you have to have caught up with everything i like just like a little shout out a little a little cool thing but yeah thanks bobby next question hi anthony do you think vincent intended to drown all along presumably like her mother did or was it truly an accident thanks andrew austin i think it was truly an accident i think it was probably an accident that her mom died i think vincent lived a reckless life and i'm not saying that's a bad thing no judgments a lot of people live reckless lives it's a cool way to go i'd rather live a reckless life than be too safe i think that vincent was careless and uh but i truly think that she thought she would be safe doing what she was doing if the ghost doesn't show up i think she's okay she knows it's a mistake when she drops the camera and tries to catch it she's not like oh finally she doesn't embrace death but i think that death by drowning in a cold ocean doesn't sound like the worst way to go uh that i think that uh i think she was just being a little reckless but did certainly did not intend to kill herself hey jessel nick i see you're wearing a metric shirt for our september book reveal a clever nod to characters in the toronto music scene perhaps did you snag that shirt just for this occasion or are you uh surreptitiously a diehard fan of the canadian music scene trying to impress us with your musical cred if you were to choose a song that encapsulates the essence of the hotel or the journey of a character what would it be and why cheers sean iskirski campbell river british columbia vancouver island okay when i chose to wear my metric t-shirt it was a pretty new one i'm a big metric fan i didn't even think about emily haynes emily saint john mandel that was not planned i think emily saint john mandel is canadian i didn't even know metric was canadian i know metric because i once did an episode i did stand up on an episode of late last call with carson daly and metric was the band and they played monster hospital and it was fucking awesome and i bombed and then had to talk to either andy dick or metric and i chose metric and i was talking to them like you guys were great they were like oh you were great even though they were lying because i fucking ate it on that show but ever since then i've been a big fan of metric i don't have all their albums but i like them i got really into that monster hospital album and i've i've listened to everything they've done since i think emily haynes is really cool if i was going to choose a song that encapsulates the essence of the canadian music scene that encapsulates the essence of the hotel or the journey of a character what would it be the macarena i think you can't go wrong like anytime you're reading a book and you're listening to the macarena it syncs up it's always gonna work it helps you read quicker i think the probably the glass hotel inside was just cranking the macarena i think baltic the band probably sounded a lot like the guys who did the macarena i don't know who they were no one does no one ever found out uh but the macarena for sure maybe if i had to pick another one i would hear my first thought was sweet dreams are made of the are made of this by eurythmics any version when they slow it down and do that weird creepy thing in movies this was i would see that but that's the most cliche but the macarena never cliche i would go with that anthony and miss kim in the glass hotel a couple of the characters think of alternate realities al-qaeda's thinks about the counter life where he's in a dubai hotel instead of prison oscar thinks of his ghost life where he runs to the fbi when he first learns of the scheme instead of going along with it are these just fantasies to escape the turmoil they land in are they also acknowledging their guilt and knowing they took the wrong path how do you feel about looking back on your own decisions and imagining if you want a different route than the one that you took looking forward to the next pick andrew from wisconsin i think they're both i think they're both kind of like these fantasies of what could have been if they've been different people if you've been a little bit stronger uh if money didn't mean so much if you went to the fbi right away i think it's interesting that enrique or enrico the one guy who does not uh get arrested who escapes kind of regrets not uh not uh just getting arrested by the time that this book ends in like 2029 when everyone gets out of prison some people get it worse than others uh but enrico is in prison for his entire life can never use his real name again probably didn't get to keep that much of the money that i think he everyone has regrets whether they got away or not i think a lot of it is guilt of just the people that you fucked over uh for your own gains and a lot of it is just kind of like fantasizing about the way his life could have gone i've certainly done that with my life it's like oh if i had taken this job over that job what if i had gotten this audition you know how would my life would have been different but i think it's something you think about for a little bit and then you move on you know it's not a uh it hasn't been a big deal for me Maybe some people have other decisions that are worse for them. If you're choosing between who to marry and you pick the wrong one, I don't know. I think it's a healthy thing to do, especially if you're in prison, to have a counter life and think about your sins. Next question, Anthony, which character do you find the most interesting? It's a cast of flawed characters, as is life, but I'm wondering if there's one character's story you were drawn to more than others. Personally, I enjoy Leon Previn. There's something endearing about how he adopts the circumstances after the Ponzi scheme and still finds appreciation for what he does have. Thanks. Leon's story was fascinating to me. He was one of the main stories I remembered afterwards of a guy who had it all and then ended up having to live in a camper with his wife and just had bad knees and things were going to get worse for him. My favorite, I really liked Ella Kaspersky, the journalist. Paul Wright, Why Don't You Swallow Broken Glass? She never lets that shit go. She's doggedly determined to expose this pyramid scheme, never stops. I really liked Walter Lee. I thought Walter Lee had a cool story that he's running this hotel and then when everything falls apart and he's got no money, he talks them into letting him stay in a luxury hotel by himself. And he's doing jobs, he's cleaning and stuff, but I thought he just seemed to have the best life afterwards. But you also can't forget about Oscar. Who got to fuck Vincent right at the very end when it was all coming down. That seemed like a revenge fuck in this book seemed like very exciting to me. Anthony, I'd be interested in your take on why the book is called The Glass Hotel. Be it the idiom of throwing rocks in glass houses, references to glass throughout the book, the idea that we are watching these people make poor choices as we are observing them in an aquarium, etc. Thanks, Kyle. I didn't give this a ton of thought. I thought it was more about how. These rich people feel like they want these experiences, but they want to be separate from them at the same time. You know, they want to be in the middle of the wilderness in this Vancouver Island, but also separate from it that you're not really. It's ultra exclusive and you can like see the trees and the nature, but you're not really a part of it. That kind of seemed like a metaphor for being ultra wealthy to me. This book definitely does not look kindly on the ultra wealthy that seems like it would feel like living in a glass. Even in a normal, like a really nice hotel, you're still meeting people in the lobby, hanging out. A glass hotel just feels cold and remote and so tough to get into that it's not even fun. That's why I said I definitely not. I definitely didn't think about people fucking throwing rocks in glass houses. That had nothing to do with it. You were way off base with that. But. And you're not observing them in an aquarium either. You were way off. All your guesses were wrong. It might just be the name of the book. But I saw it as like you want to be a part of life, but not really. You want your own experience of it without having to actually touch it or get dirty. Hey Anthony, my question for you is about Mirella's encounter with Vincent at the restaurant Vincent worked at. Do you think Mirella didn't know that Vincent was working at the restaurant? Or do you think she willingly decided not to recognize her? So that it wouldn't lead to an unwanted conversation. Also, was there a moment where you recognized someone from your past but refused to acknowledge them? If so, how did it affect your view on the relationship that you had with them? AJ. Ajay? Ajay? I'm going to say Ajay. Listen, I know I've got inside information. Mirella definitely knew that was Vincent. She's cut her hair. I think Mirella's trying to embarrass her. I think Mirella totally believed that Vincent knew about the. Pyramid Scheme. Mirella has been ruined as well. That she's punishing Vincent by pretending she does not exist. I know this because in Sea of Tranquility, Mirella pops up and tries to track down Vincent to apologize. Realizes from talking to friends that Vincent actually didn't know anything about it. They actually were friends in real life. She tries to track her down and apologize. And of course, it's too late. This happened to me once. I once went on a date with someone early on in my comedy days. And then she ghosted me. And then I moved to New York for a couple of years. When I moved back to LA, I had a TV show. And I was at a table with a bunch of executives. And she was the waitress. And I said hello. And then it was very cold. And when she walked away, they were like, she was flirting with you. And I was like, I am aware. But I was not going to give her anything. Because you don't ghost me. And then get to wait on me. And have me flirt with you. It doesn't happen. Hey, Anthony. The Glass Hotel was a five-star read for me. I'd love to hear what you think of Paul's use of Vincent's videos for his career. We get his justification for why he thinks it's okay. But I'm curious to hear your perspective. As a comedian, what themes in this book overlap with your thoughts on the theft of intellectual property? Thank you for inspiring us to read more. Greg in Oklahoma. I was surprised that Vincent was so upset about him using these home videos. They're from childhood. I would have been like, oh, cool. You're using these. I think maybe they just, if he had reached out and asked permission, she would have been cool with it. If she got credit in the program or if he credited her with it, like I'm sure he does later on, maybe she's okay with it. Again, like she wasn't using them for anything. They were found in the childhood home. I can see being a little taken aback by it. But to cut off all contact or leave immediately. Maybe you come backstage and yell at them. Like, what the fuck? But I also understand Paul. It's almost like found art at that point. But I think you do. You should have given credit. I'm okay with intellectual property. Not theft, but like I really like girl talk. You know, the DJ who mashes up different songs. I think it's so fun. And you kind of know what he's doing. He's not stealing it. I think it's weird when like when a state sue singers for having songs that sound too much like another song. I think it's all strange. But again, don't steal. If you're like fully lifting and plagiarizing, that's different than just kind of borrowing as part of a bigger project. And again, there were five minute short films in the background of a music thing. I didn't think it was that big a deal. But I could be wrong. Maybe other artists would lose their goddamn minds at that. But I think if they got to go back and relive that moment, I think both Paul and Vincent would have handled it differently at the end of the book. Hi, Anthony. I love this book, but I have a thing against authors. Killing their heroes. As one of my lit professors in college said, it's a cop out. Do you agree or disagree? Thank you, Laura. P.S. I'm a librarian. Thanks for creating this book club. It's awesome. OK, what I'm going to say, it might be a little controversial here. I do think it can be a cop out depending on how they die. And I love a hero to die at the end of a novel. I love it. And again, a novel novel ends whenever you decide to end the story. Everyone dies eventually. Maybe you just play it out. I also think there's an argument to be made that Paul is the hero of the story. I know he gets way less screen time, but he kind of goes through more of a journey and comes out changed at the end that you could see it as Paul being the hero. There is someone you can root for who has come out the other side. And Vincent's journey, it's death, but it's not like just like she snuffs out. She gets to say, see her brother. One last time, she gets to walk away with her mother at the end of this book, which is an afterlife. So I kind of agree with you that it can be a cop out depending on how you use it. I like when they do it. But I don't agree that they really use that trope here because I think I think Vincent is like kind of still alive as a ghost at the end of the book. There's a lot of ghosts in this book. And I think there's an argument to be made that Paul is actually the hero or the main protagonist in this book. And I can't wait to hear what you guys think about that. Anthony, the glass hotel is told in a nonlinear fashion. No fucking shit. I just jumped all around like playing hopscotch for an hour trying to describe this book. Beginning near the end of the timeline with Vincent falling from the ship, the structure reminded me of stoner, which also opens by revealing the main character's death. Do you think revealing a tragic endpoint early on changes how the reader perceives the overall narrative? I can upon second reading, I can get why honestly, I forget. I'll read in the beginning that they die and then I kind of get locked into the story and I totally forget that they've died. And sometimes it's like right up until they die. So that book could have ended with Vincent getting pulled out of the water and getting mouth to mouth and spitting up water and being OK that it puts someone in danger. But I forgot about it almost immediately. And I think the way Emily St. John Mandel wrote that scene is a lot different than. In stoner, where they flat out tell you that he died and was buried. But even then, I still am so invested in the story that doesn't really affect things for me. It didn't in stoner and it did not in this. Sometimes I could see it bothering you or giving you comfort. It gives me comfort to hear Paul's story interspersed with Paul talking to his therapist after he's come through these is drug addiction. So I can see it affecting you or not. But again, I forget. I get so locked into the story that I forget immediately. okay we've got see how many we have left here i picked a fuck ton we've got like five i'm gonna read them all because i'm at the ringer now if i was at home i may have just been like miss kim you finished this i'm gonna go play with rummy rummy's not here so i'm gonna read all these questions maybe we'll edit some out hi the whole ponzi scheme felt a little goofy to me but what would you have done if you were implicated when everything came down mahalo mel from hawaii i didn't think the i didn't think the ponzi scheme was goofy at all maybe i read it closer to the bernie madoff of it all i read this book when it came out uh in 2018 and loved it i thought it was fascinating to see the inside of things and people trying to get away with it uh knowing that they were fucked how would i handle it i'd handle it i don't think i would have the balls to to actually flee the country uh i think i'd handle exactly like oscar i think i would google ways out of it chicken out and then try to fuck my boss's wife or my boss's partner to try to get some sort of revenge before i went to jail but i would definitely go to jail at the end because of my search history that's how i would handle it um that i think yeah some of them like lucia or like the the woman who took her kids out like tried to deny it the whole way whereas harvey who just uh um confessed to everything got the lightest sentence i think oscar fell somewhere in the middle and i think i'd be an oscar in that although i also would like to think that the first time i heard my boss was running a giant pyramid scheme that i would call the feds where i would get the fuck out of there i'd probably take the check he handed me the first time and then go but i also would never work in finance that sounds like pure hell i'd rather be here at the ringer hello what do you what do you think about the role of guilt and remorse in this book i'm really fascinated by the concept of guilt throughout the story and who feels guilty and who doesn't take paul who harbors so much guilt over accidentally contributing to the musician's overdose but he doesn't follow the usual recovering addict trope he doesn't really use that guilt to drive him to become a better person or anything he keeps on kind of stumbling along and even the artistic success he finds is due in part to stealing vincent's videos he feels so guilty but it kind of traps him stacy i think the role of guilt and remorse is all this book is that's the driving force behind every single sentence in this book and i disagree that paul um doesn't follow the usually recover the usual recovering addict trope he takes fucking baltic songs from the guy he killed and puts them into like his own art and then his sister who he like could not help he takes her videos and uses them he seems helpless and i think it's like he's like the definition of a recovering addict trying to make up for past sins trying to make baltic you know popular uh like they maybe they could have been if he hadn't killed the fucking keyboardist uh maybe uh you know his sister could have been an artist if he had been there for her instead of falling prey to his uh his addiction um disagree with everything but yeah guilt and remorse is all that this book is all of it uh next question did you notice that the painting the thinker referenced in the book is used on the cover of the familiar edition of stoner i had no idea i didn't know i thought that was just a that could have been an original of just some guy when i hear about the thinker i think of the statue of the guy going like this i had no idea i don't really know art at all uh why do you think 9-11 is never mentioned or alluded to i don't know that's my one knock on this book that's my one knock on any book i was maddened stoner i think any book if they're not talking about 9-11 someone should be like either they're not talking about it because it's about to happen or they're like hey remember 9-11 or like hey wouldn't it be crazy if in a hundred years there was a 9-11 i know some you know someone on my staff reads fantasy books if there's not a 9-11 in one of those books you kind of want their version of 9-11 that yeah it made me mad then the book was a book that it was all over that no one talked about 9-11 i'm joking obviously i don't think everyone would have to talk about 9-11 some of this is in 2008 2019 i don't think rich people were like hey let's talk about 9-11 for a little bit i'm okay with them not talking about 9-11 i don't know where they would have maybe baltic had a song about 9-11 that office chorus section switches into first person why and who is that michael f i think it goes into a chorus because it's the easiest way to explain what a pyramid scheme is and who all was getting fucked and how many people are being affected by this and how the guilt is spread around even though uh al-qaeda is kind of the architect i think the chorus talking shows him being from at a cold remove as it was all from his point of view i think you'd have a different take on it uh to show how many people are guilty and also if i was gonna guess i would say it's either telling the story like she does later on in the book to like 20 years later to her underlings or it's harvey's confession that they're all reading that that didn't like bother me i thought i was just like happy that you're not making me read too much about this uh too much about this um this ponzi scheme and when you could be talking about 9-11 and you know stay tuned at the end of the episode when we'll go in depth more about 9-11 and what that meant to all of us it's only been 25 years we need to talk about it more on the show book club we haven't really gotten that deep uh i don't know when i haven't announced next month's book yet but we might go deep into 9-11 hi anthony really enjoying the book club i enjoyed the glass hotel but until the last chapter i felt like i was completing a lego set without the box or manual do you think this is one of those books that's vastly better the second time you've read it james good question james i agree with you that it's like putting together a lego set without the manual i will tell you that i enjoyed it more the first time i read it the second time when i know what's coming and i know what the manual looks like and what the pieces fit together i didn't get as much of a rush out of it as i did the first time i read it it made me appreciate her other books more uh just i couldn't even tell you why i didn't like the book less but i didn't enjoy it as much and the first time i read it i was really blown away by the way things were connected by the way uh character beats him and i was like oh my god i'm gonna read this book again and again and again and i was like oh my god i'm gonna read this book again and again and again and again and again and the cold remove of a lot of these people that i liked it more the first time i read it i'll tell you that and if you didn't like it that's okay it definitely was a lot of puzzle pieces jumping around in time but i found that to be very effective the first time that i read it and kind of showed me parallels in lives uh you know there's there's more than one heroin addict son in this book and i appreciated seeing different ones and the different outcomes of their lives but i liked it more the first time last question hey anthony i want to ask you about your ideal or preferred reading environment how you have mentioned reading primarily on a kindle or e-reader and of course you read a lot on airplanes and in hotels when touring what about at home do you have a favorite chair or space where you sit and read do you prefer sitting in a comfy chair or lying down also are you able to read when riding in a car or train i'm struggling with being comfortable while reading i can't quite figure out the right space to be able to sit for a long time i'm struggling with being comfortable while reading for an extended period of time i'm curious what you do love the book club please keep it going h in new york city uh h i've got a bunch of different ways that i read sometimes i want to be comfortable sometimes i want to be like lying in a pile of blankets as comfortable as can be sometimes i legitimately want to be a little bit uncomfortable so i kind of have to pay attention like i want a good posture i have an eames chair in my room in my bedroom that i'll sit in and read for a little while i like this chair because it's comfortable and it's comfortable and it's comfortable so i like to sit outside and read in different chairs but i don't have like one reading spot where i go to read all the time but i'm always looking for comfort that's what's great about an e-reader is you can just kind of like move around and uh and do different things i can read in a car i'm in long car journeys if i'm just by myself i am reading that whole time i have anywhere that people would just be on their phone i like to read uh but i don't always need it to be super comfortable although i do like when i see like book nooks or reading books reading nooks in uh in houses where it's kind of just like a like a conclave thing and they put blankets in there that looks comfy to me those people who have like a giant raft and they put a bunch of blankets into it and then get into that and float around the pool that seems really comfy to me that i think just throw a bunch of blankets down like you're some kind of fucking hamster and uh and lay in it i think that's good but again sometimes i want to read without being too comfortable because then you almost like fall asleep and you're not paying attention that i have in my office the chair i read into my office isn't super comfortable it's nice you're lying down it's like a it's a it's a lounge chair a chaise lounge uh but i it's not the most comfortable thing in the world it's a vintage one and i like that because it makes me feel like i'm kind of going to school okay those were the questions and that was the recap of glass hotel again this was maybe the toughest one for me to recap because it jumped around so much and al-qaeda was not the most fun word to say i hope that i made the book sound sound as good as I thought it was people seem to people who wrote and seem to really enjoy the book this month I hope I didn't like ruin it for you by making it like too scholastic by making it sound like homework I swear to god when you read it it's fun Emily Saint John Mandel is fun jumping around in time is interesting it's just tough to describe the book to someone but I hope I did a good job uh and I hope the editors here at the ringer which is a great step we had a great staff before but we let we really leveled up here at the ringer and uh and I am uh I am happy to be here and I hope you guys enjoyed that recap of uh of the glass hotel and again I hope you felt a sense of accomplishment when you finished the book if you like this definitely read sea of tranquility it kind of picks up where this ends uh with Paul and then it moves on from there you it's a completely different book after uh you get a little closure from closure from Morella and Paul definitely read exit party that just came out this year I think it's a guarantee to be in my top 10 I got a couple months to go of reading uh but I loved exit party I will read anything Emily Saint John Mandel writes she's one of my absolute favorite living writers uh uh today absolutely maybe I definitely top five maybe top three there's an argument that she could be number one I have not met her we're trying to get her on the book club um and now to announce uh October's pick I wanted something a little bit spooky I don't read a lot of horror but I do like books that have a little bit of a scare in them so for uh October's just on a book club pick I have picked the trees by Percival Everett and now I will describe the cover of the trees it's black and it says trees and there's a dot in the middle of it and it says the dot in front of trees uh nailed it can't sue me now the trees is a great book I think this is my first Percival Everett that I ever read I've read a bunch of them since he wrote James which I believe he won a bunch of awards for maybe the Pulitzer definitely nominated for it but Percival Everett's an incredible writer wrote a lot of really funny books with about serious subjects the trees is my version of horror where it's about like Medgar Evers becomes a zombie the corpse of Medgar Evers rises from the dead and kills racists and mass in the south in modern day and a couple of detectives are trying to figure out what the fuck is going on because they keep on just finding like a bunch of dead white people and then Medgar Evers like decomposing corpse at the scene I'm telling you it's awesome I talked about it when I used to talk about it on my old podcast for months it was one of my favorite books my first Percival Everett certainly will not be my last uh the book is hilarious and has that horror tinge to it for October it is let's see how many pages we got here we got just over 300 pages uh you guys can finish this in a month get your questions in by October 26th get your emails to jessalynickbookclub at gmail.com and by October 26th we will do another video at the end of the month here at The Ringer and don't forget to tune in this next Wednesday. Every Wednesday coming forward uh we will be doing a interview with uh with some people next week I got Greg Rosenthal we're going to talk about Life of M the book that is written about Natalie Portman and how much we either liked it or disliked it Greg and I have a fun time sitting here in The Ringer offices and maybe if you guys make it the highest rated episode in the history of The Ringer we can get Greg to The Ringer one day if you guys don't watch it that's never going to happen but I would love to have Greg here. The same company as me and Paige and Mags and Daniel and Noah those are all the names I know I'm going to learn everyone's names everyone here is so cool I'm the least cool person here by a mile everyone's great so again thank you for watching this episode of Jessalynick Book Club in our new arena uh remember TV is bad movies are bad uh Miss Kim give me something else that's bad Ponzi schemes are bad getting in a car wreck Miss Kim is bad Miss Kim got hit she was not the hitter she got hit but she's got to deal with it those are bad but especially Ponzi schemes and uh reading is good good reading is good okay get your get your books see you next time on The Ringer we'll see you next time on The Ringer Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile I don't know if you knew this but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying it's not just for celebrities so do like I did and have one of your assistants assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch upfront payment of $45 for three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first three months only then full price plan options available taxes and fees extra see full terms at mintmobile.com We'll see you next time.