I absolutely love Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven Cycle series—I find her writing very beautiful, and it’s one of a few YA series that I fully recommend to adults as well. I’ve been looking forward to reading The Listeners, her debut adult novel, since I’d heard it was going to be released.
The story opens in January of 1942, shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the entrance of the US into World War 2. June is the general manager of a luxury hotel catering to the very wealthy in a remote area in West Virginia (yes, I did basically sing “Take Me Home, Country Roads” in my head for a significant portion of the time I was reading this). In the middle of preparing for a Robbie Burns Day event, she gets the news that the owner has agreed to a deal with the federal government—the hotel will be used to house Japanese, Germany, and Italian citizens that, for various reasons, can no longer be allowed to freely remain at large in the country.
There’s a lot of subplots regarding the various guests/prisoners (depending on how you look at it), but everything is tied together through the viewpoints of June and Tucker Minnick, an FBI agent assigned to monitor the hotel (both to eavesdrop for useful information, as well as to prevent any of the guests from communicating with the outside world). There’s a lot of moral dilemmas presented, and there are no easy answers. The hotel staff are constantly getting drafted, and even those that remain have loved ones being sent to war, so some of them are naturally resentful of having to provide “luxury” services to those they see as the enemy. However, there’s the understanding among those conducting diplomatic work that there is an expectation that they are setting a precedent for the treatment of American citizens in similar situations in other countries, and that the accommodations are temporary until a sort-of hostage trade can take place. Some of the guests are undeniably bad people, but there are also innocents (a probably-autistic child prone to fits, journalists coerced into publishing propaganda, and a daredevil pilot) that are likely to face prosecution if they are sent home. But if they aren’t, then that means that an American won’t get to come home. There are no easy choices, and throughout the novel June and Tucker decide what prices they are willing to pay.
The beginning of the book is a little slow, but at around a quarter of the way in I was fully hooked. Stiefvater’s writing remains great, and the setting felt like a real place. Despite being set nearly 100 years ago, it’s got some themes that are especially relevant today. It’s a great standalone novel, and I hope that she writes more!