The Bird Hotel: A Novel

This lyrical and finely crafted novel takes place on the shores of the legendary Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, where Maynard has owned a rustic retreat for many years. She confesses that many publishers rejected her novel, which follows a traumatized young American woman seeking redemption, because they feared it was risky for a white American author to write about indigenous people and themes. She proves herself fully capable of creating Maya characters with gentle empathy, neither sensationalizing nor patronizing them. In The Bird Hotel, the Guatemalan characters are mostly hard-working, skilled, resilient, and honest, devoted to family and church, but women get pregnant too young and too often, some mothers abuse alcohol, and a few locals are treacherous scammers. Many youthful emigrants from Guatemala are not running from gang violence or military repression, as some pro-immigration activists in the United States insist they are, but rather leaving in search of economic opportunity. The indigenous communities view the tourists—a mixed bag of yoga aficionados, lost souls, honeymoon couples, and real estate speculators—with curiosity and as a crucial source of income; if the indigenous Guatemalans harbor deep-seated anti-white resentments, such tensions are not apparent in Maynard’s creative imagination.