BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Enders Hotel, A Memoir’
This memoir tells of Brandon Schrand’s experience growing up in a family-owned hotel in Soda Springs, Idaho and is complete with elements of light humor, recollections of common boyhood and flawless descriptions of how people can brand our memories forever.
The majority of this story takes place while Schrand is between the ages of nine and 12. In this time period, he moves between Washington and Idaho while his mother and stepfather relocate to battle financial woes. Eventually, however, they end up at the Enders Hotel which is owned and operated by Schrand’s grandparents.
Schrand lived, played and worked in the old hotel from age nine until his mid-teens, living on a pull away bed in one of the ground floor hotel rooms. This became his life until 1992 when his recently widowed grandmother sold the establishment.
Throughout the book, Schrand refers to a father whom he’s never met due to his incarceration shortly after Schrand’s birth. Often during the story, a man would walk through the glossed brown doors of the Enders Hotel and Schrand would lapse into an imagined story of how this stranger was his father returning to gravel for forgiveness.
The author also provides detailed descriptions of characters that had passed through the hotel and had affected his life. Many of these individuals were nothing more than poor tenants working around the Enders in exchange for a place to stay. A painter who inspired Schrand to create and a convicted murderer who knifed a bum behind the Enders were only a few of the acquaintances who took up bed spaces.
Of course I could not mention this book without applauding Schrand’s ability to write from a child’s voice and in turn, creating scenarios and dialogue worthy of a deep belly chuckle.
A scene which best describes this begins with Schrand as a young boy in elementary school with his best friend BJ. The pair decide they are going to build a raft and float down a near by river until they reach the Great Salt Lake. However, their flawed engineering forces their raft to sink as soon as they hop on it, so they scoot it along the bed of the river.
But the consistent theme throughout this piece is Schrand’s mention of the Enders Hotel as the only constant in his turbulent life. In times where the economy slumped or bad weather forced businesses to close, the Enders prevailed.
Another unique feature this book contains is the one to five word synopses that accompany each chapter number. These prove to be great lead-ins to the next portion of Schrand’s life he is choosing to divulge. The book also follows Schrand throughout his life grounding the reader in his footprints.
The only complaint I have against this book is that it does not contain a table of contents. This makes navigating through the book difficult, however I’d like to note that this is a small complaint and the only thing I could find to disagree with.
And like those of us at this fine institution who desire to be grade A writers, Schrand worked toward his English degree at USU. His story, “The Enders Hotel,” made him the 2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize winner, and a 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers winner.
Now, despite growing up in a dysfunctional household, Schrand is the director of the MFA creative writing program at the University of Idaho. He lives there with his Kelli Gardner Schrand and his two daughters.
So after reading this book I feel compelled to say everyone should go read it. It’s not necessarily the most profound piece of literature to ever grace the holy altar that is your palms, but you can practically see the sweat and blood Schrand produced to give us “The Enders Hotel.”
–greg.boyles@aggiemail.usu.edu