One of those rare biographical novels that bring a whole world to life
in a way that lingers in memory.
--Jay Parini, author of Borges and Me
This absorbing, sensitive novel portrays a famed author in a moment of
crisis: an aging Hugo von Hofmannsthal returns to a summer resort
outside of Salzburg that he visited as a child. But in the spa town
where he once thrilled to the joys of youth, he now feels unproductive
and uninspired, adrift in the modern world born after World War One.
Over ten days in 1924 in a ramshackle inn that has been renamed the
Grand Hotel, Hofmannsthal fruitlessly attempts to complete a play he's
long been wrestling with. The writer is plagued by feelings of
loneliness and failure that echo in a buzz of inner monologues,
imaginary conversations and nostalgic memories of relationships with
glittering cultural figures. Palace of Flies conjures up an individual
state of distress and disruption at a time of fundamental societal
transformation that speaks eloquently to our own age.