The Electric Hotel, a historical fiction from Dominic Smith was engrossing. The main character Claude Ballard has been living in a hotel since his career ended. Suddenly a student Sabine comes to interview him bringing back the past he wished he could forget.

The Electric Hotel is a portrait of a man entranced by the magic of moviemaking, a luminous romance, and a whirlwind trip through early cinema. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

This book delves into the fascinating history the beginning of silent film. hat it was inspired by an actual Spanish silent film, El hotel eléctrico, makes it even more fascinating to me (turns out it's on YouTube!). It's a historical book done right, with attention to detail down to vintage images at the beginning of each chapter that I greatly enjoyed. This is not a plot driven page turner, but it is still a very interesting book that makes you want to delve in more to the characters, real and imagined.

Australian writer Dominic Smith gives us the story of a lost silent movie - okay, the movie, the title-giving "The Electric Hotel", is fictional, but many of the processes discussed and historic circumstances shown are real. This is a treat for readers who are interested in the history of movies and cinema, feat. a whole cast of characters who illuminate different aspects of the craft and the creation of a new art form. And silent movies are getting a little more popular again: In Luxembourg City, there are regular events where silent movies are shown while the (mostly original) live music is played, from solo piano to the whole symphonic orchestra - and it's great!

I’m of the opinion that anything can be interesting if the right person is writing about it.

I’ve no particular interest in early film history, but figured I could get interested based on the above principle.

Unfortunately, this book didn’t do it for me.

There are some fun factoids about the early days of film and Smith writes smoothly, but mostly this was an unrewarding slog.

The relationship between Claude and his muse just isn’t that interesting, and the bulk of the plot is centered around their time together.

All that is to say, I was bored. Really bored.

I expect readers who are into film history or who are fans of historical romance would like this book just fine. But for me, there was simply not enough to hold my attention.

Unfortunately, this one was not for me. The pacing was a little too slow to keep my attention and lost me a few times.

A very well researched tale of the age of cinema. We stumbled along with an eager artist who wanted to take a bite out of the world. He may haven gotten too ahead of himself at times and too rebellious. It’s like watching a beautiful, brand new ship built from nothing to only burn at sea. The other main protagonist was that of an aging actress who was a bit to close to home for me, so at times it pulled me out of a otherwise well written novel. I found her ego unbearable and no part of her charming. The back and forth through the past did not help support this book either - as we were watching cinema grow with the times - why not grow with it in a linear fashion? The characters and structure aside, I found the history and descriptions very educational and entertaining.

In 2014, I completed a year-long 1-second-a-day project. My kids still ask to watch the seven minute result, enjoying the flashes of the everyday and odd sound-grabs. I was reminded of it when I read Dominic Smith’s latest novel, The Electric Hotel.

The novel focuses on Claude Ballard, a pioneer of silent films.

Strangers have always interested me, Claude said. The way they illuminate their own sorrows or joys when you least expect it. It might be half a second of staring into space, then it vanishes.

The story moves between Fort Lee, New Jersey (America’s first movie town), the battlefields of Belgium during World War I, Paris, and later, Hollywood. When a film-history student comes to interview Claude about his lost masterpiece, The Electric Hotel, Claude is reminded of his muse, the difficult but enchanting actress, Sabine Montrose, and the others that shaped his career, from investors to stuntmen.

There’s a denseness to Smith’s writing that I don’t quite get on with. I appreciate the richness of the detail; Smith’s meticulous research; and what is clearly a passion for what he is writing about – for example, the section devoted to Claude’s role in building the ‘fake Paris’ was fascinating. Equally interesting, the mention of Tuberculosis (it is critical to a number of subplots). A doctor describes those suffering, and I can only assume that Smith found these words in an old medical manual somewhere (clearly the Tuberculars are complex people) –

Tuberculars are hedonistic, stylish, and emotionally superficial…they crave freedom…they move through the world sensing they might suffocate, that the air is too heavy to breathe. A chill between the shoulder blades and an aversion to meat. They crave cold milk, want to use foul language, and are afraid of dogs.

There was some lovely detail around the process of movie-making and although the character of Sabine was flimsy, she had some terrific scenes –

Every role began with a wound and a spark, something to fuse the character to the actor’s own shards of memory.

However, the characters lacked heart and their motivations weren’t always convincing, particularly in the case of Sabine. Furthermore, Smith’s writing frequently felt heavy and overworked, and as a result the themes around our perception of the world and what we chose to ‘focus’ on, aren’t as crisp as they could be.

Now they were all aficionados of the human drama, the grocery clerk and the banker’s wife and the businessman, laying everything out on a mental wire of juxtaposition and suggestion. It was the viewer, Claude knew, who provided his own narrative powers to complete the picture, who placed one thing against another.

I read this book because I enjoyed The Last Painting of Sara de Vos and I think historical fiction fans will adore it. I will read more from Smith in the future, if only for the educative value

2.5/5 A tad disappointed.

I received my copy of The Electric Hotel from the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I received an advanced digital copy of this book from the author, Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Sarah Crichton Books and Netgalley.com. Thanks to all for the opportunity to read and review. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.

The Electric Hotel is a story as beguiling as the silver screen itself. Lush, beautiful and enrapturing. A completely entertaining read for fans of classic cinema.

4 out of 5 stars. Recommended reading.

The Electric Hotel is a novel about the protagonist, Claude, and his involvement with the creation of the film making industry.

I love reading about the history of film so I thought that this book would be a no-brainer for me but, ultimately, I found it dull and lifeless. There were a few touching moments (i.e. with the dying sister) but most of it was too bland for me.

I received an e-arc from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

There’s so much to like about “The Electric Hotel” by Dominic Smith—lyrical writing, immersion into the world of early filmmaking (in New Jersey, no less—who knew?), a love affair, and a fun story-within-a-story structure. Smith begins the book in 1960s LA, with former filmmaker Claude Ballard living at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, spending his days foraging for mushrooms in the surrounding hillsides and his evenings socializing with the eccentric cast of characters who have ended up in residence at the fading hotel. Then film enthusiast Martin Embry arranges to meet Claude for breakfast to discuss his film oeuvre, particularly a lost masterpiece called “The Electric Hotel.” And with that, Claude takes both Martin and the reader back in time through his film career, from the moment in Paris in 1895 when he first saw the Lumiere brothers project moving pictures on their cinématographe; to his years as a salesmen traveling the world to promote the Lumieres’ technology, meeting stuntman Chip Spaulding in Australia and cinema impresario Hal Bender in Brooklyn along the way; to the years after the Claude, Chip and Hal have decided to make a go of their own film production company based in Fort Lee, New Jersey. And foremost in all of Claude’s memories are those of Sabine Montrose, famous French actress and the love of his life.

As Smith moves the story back in forth in time between Claude’s conversations with Martin and his memories of his filmmaking career, he presents a panoramic vision of the people and events of the first quarter of the 20th century—from the workshops of Thomas Edison, Claude’s creative and business nemesis, to the battlefields of WWI, where Claude is coerced into shooting propaganda films for the Germans, to the dirigibles floating above New York’s Hudson River that provide the spectacular finish to Claude’s masterpiece “The Electric Hotel.” The finish to Smith’s book is no less wonderful, one of the best and most satisfying book endings in recent memory, but I don’t want to spoil anything. Pop a big bowl of popcorn and settle in to read “The Electric Hotel” for yourself.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with an ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux/Sarah Crichton Books on June 4, 2019

Dominic Smith invented most of the characters who populate The Electric Hotel, as well as the silent film that shares the novel’s title, but the book reads as if it were the retelling of a key moment in cinematic history. The story features a character who was, in his youth, a pioneer of filmmaking. Now he is old and the subject of an interview by a young man who is pursuing a doctorate in film studies. The filmmaker has survived war and heartbreak, but since the end of World War I, “the ruins of the past had presided over his life …. For half a century, he’d been reckless in his caution, drunk on it.” While fundamentally a story of the creative process, The Electric Hotel is also a story of how the abuses of love and war can defeat even the most lively minds.

Claude Ballard is 85 in 1962, living in Hollywood’s Knickerbocker Hotel. A young film student named Martin Embry wants to interview him about his silent film, The Electric Hotel, apparently lost but regarded as a masterpiece. Martin discovers that Claude has kept the reels of the film in his room. They are deteriorating, as is Claude.

Claude remembers his sense of marvel when he attended a demonstration of a new invention by the Lumiere brothers, a camera that made pictures move. Accepting employment as their agent, Claude began to film anything that might interest an audience, including his sister’s death. In New York, he met the French stage actress Sabine Montrose. Claude films Sabine taking a bath, falls in love, and begins a life that will overwhelm him with excitement and disappointment

Beginning with the bathing scene, Claude slowly conceives the idea of making movies, as opposed to filming things that he happens to come across. Eventually he conceives of a horror film called The Electric Hotel. He wants Sabine to star in the film, hoping that her death at the film’s end will be the symbolic death of his love.

Sabine is a diva. She has no use for love except for her love of herself, but she finds Claude to be useful and therefore uses him for her own ends. Among the novel’s touching scenes, one off the best involves Sabine’s interview with a refined woman who is dying of consumption (as Sabine will be in The Electric Hotel). That scene allows the reader to see a softer, more empathic side of Sabine, a side that she rarely reveals to others.

Other key characters include a theater owner named Bender who invests borrowed money and his future in The Electric Hotel, and a fellow named Chip who earns a living by setting himself on fire and diving into the sea. Chip is called upon to do just that as the movie’s climax is filmed, making him the first cinematic stunt man. The description of Chip’s preparation for and execution of the scene is tense, as is a surprising scene involving an untamed tiger.

The initial story is built on the travails of filming the first lengthy, plotted movie. It then imagines a legal conflict between Thomas Edison (who “would patent human breath itself if he could find the legal precedent”) and Claude, who allegedly infringed Edison’s patent on film and cameras. Edison makes threats designed to ruin a competitor, regardless of their legal merit — a technique that the business world subsequently perfected. This is the second novel I’ve read that portrays Edison as a litigious asshole and I am inclined to believe that the portrayals are accurate.

The Electric Hotel imagines that the film, an act of creation, results in the destruction of Claude, Sabine, and their relationship. The story arc traces the long road to that destruction and its aftermath, including Claude’s capture by Germans while filming World War I and his clever plan to undermine Germany’s insistence that he make propaganda films for the Kaiser. The closing chapters give a brief picture of Claude’s life after the war and explain why he has chosen to live as a recluse.

Dominic Smith tells the story in such detail that The Electric Hotel reads as a well-crafted biography. His graceful prose enlivens his characters, conveying all the tragedy that attends artistic creation, business, and love. The book captures the marvel of creativity in its infancy while reminding readers that after the act of creation is finished, the brutal world can destroy even the most gifted creators.

RECOMMENDED

This was an interesting read. Initially, I was not drawn in, but the further I read in the book, the more I liked it. I certainly learned a lot about the beginning of the film industry. I had no idea that Fort Lee, the Palisades, and even Thomas Edison were involved, and I am a New Jersey native! The characters were certainly interesting and diverse, and our book club had a lively debate about Sabine becoming a mother. I also thought that the use of other “characters”, such as the suitcase and smells, made this a unique book.

One of my top book recommendations of the summer. Narrated by a (fictional) film pioneer, THE ELECTRIC HOTEL is a novel of Hollywood's formerly grand Knickerbocker, "once a place to be seen....now a place to hide or disappear." Bygones like silent era Susan Berg, costume designer Irene Lentz, and fictional composites criss-cross the story without being leaden avatars in a history lesson, and Smith captures the emotional rollercoaster - the memories, the transportative magic - of being in the dark watching movies with mesmerizing prose.

The Electric Hotel was the title of a very ambitious silent movie made by the director Claude Ballard, his muse and actress Sabine Montrose, stuntman Chip Spaulding and the producer and impresario Hal Bender. It was longer than any previous movie and included a tiger and dangerous special effects. Unfortunately, it encountered legal problems that prevented its circulation.

Most of this book is a flashback describing Claude’s experiences in the early days of the movie business, including the making of The Electric Hotel. I thought that this book started off very slowly and I was tempted to abandon it because I wasn’t really interested in Claude’s obsession with the disinterested, much older and very difficult Sabine. However, the book did provide a glimpse of how the early snippets of film were made and received by the public. Once Claude connected with Hal I became more interested in the descriptions of the business. Unfortunately, the book lost me again during the post-Electric Hotel period when it shifted the characters to Europe during WWI. Other than the movie-making itself, there wasn’t much depth to this story, in the characters, setting or history, but it was a pleasant read and I did manage to finish it.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.

This was a beautiful and haunting story of Claude Ballard, an early film maker. It tells of his success and failures as well as his work during The Great War. It also tells of his love for the beautiful Sabine. I learned a great deal about early silent film making and I appreciate the research that went into this novel.
Many thanks to Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and to NetGalley for providing me with a galley in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Electric Hotel is a love letter to an earlier time, not necessarily an easier time, but the early years of film, a time of adventure, excitement, exploration, wild success and horrible failure. Also a time of new techniques, new materials and much thinking on one’s feet. It is also a love letter to the friends, partners and lovers who were part of that glorious, difficult, wondrous time, the people who shared the victories and defeats of the early film era.

The novel centers on Claude Ballard who has been living in the same Los Angeles hotel for some 50 years, a man who never leaves his room without a camera, a man who has been filming life since he met the Lumiere Brothers in Paris in the late 19th century. One day, in 1962, he agrees to meet with a film student who would like to learn about his life. The result is what unspools here before us as a history of film, the world and Claude in both.

From having read Smith’s prior book, The Last Painting of Sara de Vos, I was very aware of his skill in dealing with artistic techniques, matters of lighting, etc. That skill and sensitivity comes to the fore again here. The descriptions of the early forms of film, both how they are created and how they are received by unsuspecting audiences completely new to the phenomenon, are very well done. I felt as if I was in the room, seeing the early images.

The personal side gets equal attention, the friendships, love affairs, hatred, business dealings that become personal. This novel fits the history of film into the world around it. It shows us the early film industry of New Jersey, the overbearing influence of Thomas Edison. There is a world here populated with living, breathing filmmakers, directors, actresses and actors, daring stuntmen, wild animals. And there is introspection, thoughtful consideration of film and life.

In short, this is a book for most readers I know and another success from Dominic Smith. 4.5 rounded to 5

A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.

I love early film history, I love historical history, and I loved Smith's last book (The Last Painting of Sara de Vos). So needless to say, I was looking forward to this book. I liked the first half or so of the book a lot. Smith walks this incredibly fine line between exhaustive research/historical detail and creative invention/fictionalization. I could believe Claude Ballard was a real person and his film, The Electric Hotel, a real film. His relationships with both his art and other people are complicated, and I think that ultimately the second half wasn't as strong as the first half because Smith tries to put so much into a comparatively short book. I feel like 100 pages or so additional material in the second half could have made a big difference. Still, overall it was a unique, engaging read, much like The Last Painting of Sara de Vos. I will definitely continue to follow Smith's work.

Claude Ballard is a legend in film making. Having started at the times of the brothers Lumière and the silent film, his „The Electric Hotel“ was a highly innovative masterpiece which is meant to have been lost for decades. Yet, when a student comes to interview Ballard about his life and work, he not only learns about the beginning of the moving pictures, but also makes an interesting discovery.

Dominic Smith’s novel is a must read for film lovers, at the example of Claude Ballard who wanders the streets of Paris and New York of 1910 to capture real life through the lens, the history and development of the silent film is narrated. His only film – “The Electric Hotel” – could have been a great success, but times weren’t easy and so were the women, first and foremost Sabine Montrose the actress who had the main role in his film and his life.

The cinematic background is clearly well researched and also the times that the characters remember come to life vividly. Yet, I am not enough into cinema to really enjoy this intensive read and the characters were quite hard for me to relate to. I am sure that readers with more interest I the topic will find a lot more delight in the novel than I did.

Here's the thing: I have zero interest in the movie industry. I enjoy the occasional movie, sure, but I could usually care less about the film business, how films get financed and made.

This is the second book I've read centered around the process of making old silent films. The first was Experimental Film by Gemma Files, and it was about the even more niche-interest of Canadian filmmaking. And I'm not dissing Canadians or their films here, I'm simply saying I never thought I'd read a book about it. That book was fantastic also. You should read BOTH books.

So, I guess it's a thing I'll read about. And enjoy. This book was outstanding in both prose and precise detail. The characters were individuals and create a definite bond for the reader. At least for me. There's a lot of "stuff" going on in this book, making it a meaty read. However, it does not go on so long the reader tires of it.

Also, I would like to mention that the egalley I received came with wonderful photos for every chapter heading that linked to the action in that chapter. If the egalley was that beautifully thought-out, I can only imagine the final copy is worth investing in.

I received a copy from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. I thank them, the publisher and definitely the author for giving me this opportunity. I will be reading more of Dominic Smith.

Actual Rating: 5 stars
Format: Kindle egalley
Source: Netgalley
Current ebook price: $13.99
Opinion of Price: Worth it
My Cost: $0.00

I've posted a review on splashmagazines.com. I admire Mr. Smith's prose but I found the main character in this book, Claude Ballard, annoyingly bland and passionless. I was also disappointed that the movie story broke off halfway through and shifted to a WWI story. While no doubt there were reasons for this choice, it makes for an unsatisfying tale.