The Hotel of Irrevocable Acts

Carl Watson
Autonomedia/Unbearable Books ($14.95)

by Tim Brown

Carl Watson’s The Hotel of Irrevocable Acts defies categorization. Lacking the
surrealistic or stream-of-consciousness elements normally associated with the
experimental tradition, it might be best described as an ambitious novel of ideas in which
various narrators discuss and debate the impact of crime, violence, and other
transgressive acts on the individual and society.

The novel’s plot, such as it is, revolves around a home invasion and assault upon a
notorious visual artist, Esmeralda Hopper, and the attempted theft of one of her paintings.
Leading up to the crime, the protagonist, Jack Matlow, recounts his youth in small-town
Indiana, seeking clues for why he got involved in such a foolish scheme. The early
chapters account for the strongest writing in the book, containing pitch-perfect
observations on the depravity of rural America, allegedly an idyllic place in the nation’s
mythology.

The rest of the novel consists of other modes of writing that examine the crime’s
ramifications from differing viewpoints: Jack and his partner in crime, Vincent, carry on a
Socratic dialogue, defending their actions as the ultimate expression of individual will;
Hopper explains through art-speak the methodology behind her gruesome creations; a
therapist writing in a psychological case study diagnoses the pathology of another
character, Nicky, who conned his way into Hopper’s inner circle, witnessed the break-in,
and is curiously claiming credit. Throughout, Jack discourses on birth, life, death, sex,
guilt, redemption, time, the universe, and transcendence. One can see why a French
publisher originally published the novel in 1997: its Norman Mailer-style existentialism,
which celebrates the outlaw for his freedom from social convention, is certainly more
appreciated overseas than here.

Watson flaunts a true gift for expressing difficult philosophical concepts through imagery
rather than reasoned argument; stunning similes and metaphors burst forth on practically
every page. On this level, The Hotel of Irrevocable Acts is a pleasure to read. Yet more
attention to storytelling would have strengthened the narrative—indeed, Jack recognizes
this early in the book, confessing, “I have to start to tell a story... And I want to start it
now, before I get lost in asides and labyrinths” (p. 37) —and it’s questionable whether the
Skid Row-dwelling characters are capable of the lofty rhetoric Watson attributes to them.
Nevertheless, Watson’s Hotel is highly unique and merits a visit for this fact alone.