The eerie thrill of a haunted hotel

In Eimear McBride’s novel Strange Hotel, the unnamed protagonist arrives at a hotel and finds the sense, more than the sight, of other people. There are cigarette butts in the courtyard and the sound of someone next door zipping up a suitcase and boiling the kettle. When she meets up with men in her room, they are fleeting, nameless exchanges: tonight, he is hers, tomorrow he will be someone else’s. The hotel seems to belong only to the protagonist, but we are aware that it is…