The Enders Hotel, winner of the
2007 River Teeth Literary Nonfiction Prize, chronicles a childhood
and coming of age in Soda Springs, Idaho, amid the beauty of the
high desert and the rampant alcoholism of a Western “company”town.
After stints elsewhere in Idaho and in Washington, young Brandon
Schrand, his mother, and stepfather settle in Soda Springs to help
Schrand’s grandmother run a brick hotel on the main street of town.
Much of the book details the magic of Schrand’s childhood
in the hotel: “We spun around on the stools, drinking our cold
drinks, eating pie, and discussed plans for the
clubhouse.”Occasionally, Schrand stumbles upon the adult world in
which his parents and grandparents live: passed-out men on
stairways, a dispossessed trapper picking through the dumpster, a
confused man with a revolver in the lobby’s phone booth.
Schrand captures surprising details of rural life in the West,
describing how his grandmother and her female friend guide him on
his first hunt. Other times, he tells stories that are all too
depressingly familiar: His grandfather is hospitalized over an
hour’s drive away, and his stepfather intermittently takes work in
neighboring states. Many of the town’s residents struggle to find
and keep work, and when they fail, they often end up at the local
bars.
Like the best memoirists,
Schrand’s personal story reflects larger cultural truths: The
transitory lives of his grandfather and stepfather mirror those of
the down-on-their luck drifters who gravitate to the hotel. The
family’s boom-and-bust finances parallel the town’s mining-based
economy. Schrand’s grandparents are kind to their neighbors in the
rich tradition of close-knit Western communities. As the growing
boy looks for a role model among the strangers who stay in the
hotel, the short chapters and the guests’ brief appearances
accentuate the sometimes uneven feel of a first book. Nevertheless,
Schrand’s memoir of the small Western town breaks new ground.
As Schrand searches for his own manhood, he watches the
trains that travel through the sagebrush valley and reflects, “They
were traveling to places that mattered.”Many small Western
communities struggle to survive on hard work, luck, and kindness;
The Enders Hotel makes Soda Springs and towns
like it finally matter.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Small-town struggle in a big land.
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