Pun Salad

Last year, I read a pretty good book, Convenience Store Woman, about Keiko, a Japanese oddball who gives her menial job an obsessive (but impressive) amount of diligence. It looks as if that sort of thing might become a mini-genre, because this book is about Molly, an American oddball also obsessed with her menial job: maid at a swanky NYC hotel.

It was nominated for a "best novel" Edgar, which was my primary reason for grabbing it at the library. I liked it a lot, even though it seems like it's marketed as chick-lit. (All the back-cover blurbs are from female names. Publishers, if you think blurbs help sell your books, why not double their reach by tossing in a few blurbs from guys?)

I don't know if Molly is "on the spectrum" or not, but she's definitely out of step with her urban environment. Nearly all her hotel co-workers consider her to be a weirdo. (One exception: Mr. Preston, the doorman, who treats her kindly, and eventually plays a major role.) Her sunny outlook on her life and job is a gift from her late grandma, now unfortunately passed away. Unfortunately, that outlook makes her extremely gullible, an easy target for "bad eggs". Things get extremely complicated for her when she discovers the corpse of Mr. Black in the hotel's fanciest suite.

The book seems to climax with a few dozen pages left. What's going on there? It turns out there are still revelations and plot twists. Hang in.