The Invisible Hotel

An arresting, vital literary horror about the human consequences of the ongoing Korean War, a young woman's quest to find the truth about her country, and an inheritance that she is only just beginning to understand.

Yewon is trapped. She's stuck in Dalbit, the small Korean village of her birth, where the ancestral bones of her relatives live in her bathtub. Reeling from the loss of her father, she works long days at the convenience store and tries to keep the peace between her mother and sister, who are constantly at each other's throats.

But the nightmares are coming. Her little brother has just been conscripted into the Korean army, and he's stationed near the North Korean border, sent to the frontlines of a decades-long war that they no longer understand. As news coverage about the North breaking armistice comes into sickeningly sharp relief, Yewon's dreams about the ravaged hotel - where the war rages on - start to seep into her reality, and she is forced to confront the truth of her country, and the full weight of her inheritance...

Stylish, visceral and haunting, The Invisible Hotel is an unforgettable literary horror about the human consequences of a war that has continued for over seven decades, and the toll of being born into a conflict that shows no signs of stopping.

Review

Extraordinary. Haunting, compulsive, stylish - as original a debut as you'd ever hope to read. ― Anna Metcalfe, author of CHRYSALIS

The Invisible Hotel wrestles artfully with big, vital questions: how do we honour and care for our elders without reinforcing a cycle of generational trauma? How do we forge new, joyful paths without indulging in mass cultural amnesia or closing our eyes to a world on fire? That it does so in a surreal, riveting, keep-the-lights-on masterwork of horror is all the more extraordinary. I will be haunted by this book for years to come. ― Kim Fu, author of LESSER KNOWN MONSTERS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Invisible Hotel is an absolute fever dream - a book that explores, with haunted grace and magical wildness, the inescapable ghosts of a fractured, heartbroken country, and one woman's relentless quest to rush headlong into the labyrinths and mysteries that make up her family. What a thrill to read this: propulsive, electric, full of fury and ecstatic writing, you won't be able to put this one down. ― Paul Yoon, author of THE HIVE AND THE HONEY

How does a war play out in a person, a family, and through generations? The Invisible Hotel asks this ambitious and heartbreaking question. In prose that is sharp, clear, and startling, Yeji Y. Ham articulates the struggle to navigate trauma, and find joy, in the aftermath of the Korean War. This book is spectacular - a horror story made into art by way of unsettling truths. ― Claire Cameron, author of THE LAST NEANDERTHAL and THE BEAR

The Invisible Hotel traps us in a haunting labyrinth where the wounds of war gape open, bones tether, and the bond of family may be the one key to set us free. Yeji Y. Ham has crafted a luminously spellbinding narrative, knitting history, grief, and love to explore the knots that tie a family and a country. ― Gerardo Sámano Córdova, author of MONSTRILIO

About the Author

Yeji Y. Ham is a Korean Canadian writer. She received her B.A. in Creative Writing from University of British Columbia (2014) and M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University (2016). At Brown, she taught fiction workshops and completed a short story collection titled Doraesol. A part of the collection was awarded the Frances Mason Harris' 26 Prizes in Fiction. She hopes that through writing, the stories of the voiceless and the forgotten would be brought out into the world.