The devastating effects of mental illness on a family become appalling clear in talented author Pat Spear’s latest novel, Hotel Impala (Twisted Road 2024). Leah’s drastic mood swings bring complete chaos to the lives of her two children—teenage Grace and grade-schooler Zoey—and her husband Daniel. Chaos is not even the worst result of Leah’s instability. […]
Read of the Month: “Hotel Impala” by Pat Spears
Filed Under: Book Reviews, Read of the Month Tagged With: Donna Meredith, Hotel Impala, Pat Spears
Focus on Mental Health: Donna Meredith Interviews Jody Hobbs Hesler, author of “Without You Here,” and Pat Spears, author of “Hotel Impala”
Introduction Recently I had the painful pleasure of reading two exceptionally fine novels that examine the effects of mentally unstable people on their families. In Jody Hesler’s Without You Here, a niece is haunted by her favorite aunt’s suicide, while Pat Spears’s Hotel Impala delivers a devastating portrait of two children confronting the chaos and […]
Filed Under: Author Profiles & Interviews Tagged With: Donna Meredith, homelessness, Hotel Impala, Jody Hobbs Hesler, mental illness, Pat Spears, suicide, unhoused, Without You Here