This would be a perfect beach read or book club book to choose. Loved the characters, location, and story. Five stars!

I don't like to admit misreading a book's blurb, but in seeing a quote from the Guardian I felt it was the most accurate thing they've printed in years – "head and shoulders above so many of the books turned out by similar writers". Unfortunately, that was for a different Parks novel entirely, and the Grauniad would never break with the official message and admit that 99% of covid books have been crap. Lockdown in print has never once interested, having been forced to live through it – the boring talking of the boring and being, well, only boring as a result. Before the 1% that proves the rule – "Hotel Milano".

Frank is an older chap, disturbed suddenly and requested to fly to Milan to attend the funeral of his old friend and boss, a magazine editor of some global renown, who employed him for years, then ran away with Frank's wife while Frank was dallying with a much younger woman, the marriage to whom ended tragically early. Picking over the bones of his attendance, the whys and the history he remembers of all four of them, he admits he never pays a single attention to the news, which is why he is surprised to find himself in a posh Milan hotel, spewing money out of his bank account and ending up in total lockdown.

One other aspect of the relationship with the dead is that Frank once wrote a comment piece for the magazine, and as charged and inflammatory as his journalism was designed to be, he'd misread the room and allegedly insulted the world, hence its suppression. This could have added something to these pages, the early example of cancel culture, but Frank can't be too dislikeable, for a bizarre set of situations must show him to be a lot more left-leaning and compassionate, when… well, that's to be found out.

And it is, for once, lockdown that is the core of the happenings here. Frank arrived in Milan with a spring in his step, thinking he ought to do this kind of thing, leaving his comfort zone, much more often, only to face the minutiae of the hotel's entrapment. The menus get shorter, everyone's patience ditto, as you need a signed chitty justifying your existence in the outside world, and all the lifts bizarrely get turned into ones for upward travel only. This more forensic look at the birth of lockdown, given the range of Frank's meandering thoughts (and those of Tennyson, whom he's reading), proves to be the right way of doing things. Gone are the swingeing statements about what lockdown did to society, and the publishing world in general's re-politicising the virus, as if the left's politicising of it in the first place was ever helpful.

This ultimately is a great book about a man who seems both full of love and loveless, a man both hating what he's done in his history and seemingly OK about repeating it, someone forced into a melting pot of his present yet for once more open to looking back at his past. It's really readable, for all the claustrophic details of the reaction to covid. And it has to be repeated that the Guardian quote really does apply here, too, for this avoids all the thrown-together-in-lockdown, edited-from-home aspects of so much British covid fiction. At last it's a classy presentation of the pandemic years, knowing just how little and how much to delve into it and how much to just give us a humble old man's personal story. Four and a half stars.

Frank is asked to attend the funeral of a former colleague in Milan. This is early 2020 and Frank, who doesn't 'do' news, is blithely unaware of the pandemic chaos that is starting to hit, with Italy as one of the worst-affected nations.

Once in Italy he soon finds himself caught up in lockdown, unable to travel freely around the city. He discovers a family hiding in the attic of his hotel and takes them into his room, but his act of kindness comes back to haunt him with unforeseen circumstances...

Told with Tim Parks' usual style and grace, this is beautifully written novel that very much comes from the perspective of our main character, often in a stream of consciousness form of thoughts and observations. Let's be honest, Frank isn't a particularly nice man, but Parks does enough to make the reader slowly warm to him and to care about what happens to him.

Quietly observant and well crafted, this is a great novel.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title.)

A thought provoking, poignant, and well written story that I loved.. I love Tim Parks as reading his books it's like looking at my country through different eyes and discovering new things.
This story is another one that made me think and turn pages as fast as I could.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

Another pandemic novel, and a good one. It goes back to March 2020, when we hardly knew a thing about COVID and how it would affect us all. The main character is Frank, a 75 year old British writer, who at first seems a bit unsympathetic and unfeeling but slowly changes when he meets the family of refugees (?) that have been hiding in the attic above his hotel room in Milan. Beautifully told novel about kindness in difficult times.
Thank you Penguin Random House UK and Netgalley for the ARC.

Reclusive Frank, a 75-year-old retired writer and academic, receives an invitation to the funeral of an old friend and rival. Almost in spite of himself he decides to go, ready, he feels, to confront old memories. But Frank no longer keeps up with the news and is unaware of the increasingly alarming Covid pandemic that is unfolding. In Milan he soon discovers that he can no longer ignore what is happening in the wider world when he finds himself quarantined in his hotel by the escalating restrictions. By nature introspective and self-absorbed, the reader is privy to Frank's inner thoughts and reflections and he becomes very real. Well-constructed and expertly paced, the novel is an absorbing and resonant read and certainly a convincing Covid novel – of which I suspect we shall see many more examples over the coming months and years. This one is a commendable forerunner and I found entering into Frank’s world as Covid spreads its grip a compelling and authentic experience.

An odd book, but also reflective of an odd time. The confluence of people who wind up in a hotel at the beginning of the pandemic and how they fit together. I enjoyed the belligerence of the hotel staff as their work situation got harder, and the cast of characters. And at is heart, a book that explores the limitations and frustrations of growing old in an impatient world.

Frank Marriott goes to Milan to attend the funeral of a person he once knew. Whilst there the pandemic hits and he is confined in to his hotel, Hotel Milano, where he meets a wide range of people. I really, really liked this. I loved the writing and I liked all the characters. The storyline was a reminder of the restrictions we met and how we all dealt with it differently. Definitely a 4.5/5.

I was not expecting to enjoy this book, but I did and I am glad I read it in 2 days. Hotel Milano is happening during Covid and the first lockdown, when spirits were high and we used to clap for everyone. The book shows us how kindness of strangers affects us and in this way it reminded me of Almodovar's All about my mother when Blanche DuBois and Huma Rojo express their dependence on the kindness of strangers. Anyway, read Tim Parks book when it is published and you won't be disappointed.

Frank lives in London, alone. He’s seventy five years old now and weighing his life it’s clear that he feels he’s already lived what’s worth living and he’s now resigned to eking out his remaining years by continually walking the busy streets of the capital. He’d previously written articles for a highbrow magazine, an arrangement brought a premature end to thanks to a particularly provocative article he’d penned. But his ex-boss, who had remained a friend, has died and he’s been invited to attend his upcoming funeral in Milan. Should he go? Tempted by the possibility of bumping into his combative ex-wife he decides he will.

On arrival in Milan he books into a five star hotel opposite the main railway station. Well, he might as well make the most of what might be his last hurrah. But what happens next is something of a surprise to him, as from his balcony perch he witnesses what seems to be a mass escape from the city; the COVID pandemic has arrived and the exodus has begun. Frank had stopped monitoring the news some time ago, so he hadn’t seen this coming. But worse, his reaction is to somehow perceive this as something that’s happening to other people and to fail to recognise the inherent risks to himself. It’s all a bit of an irritation, and inconvenience. He’ll go about his business as best he can and attempt work around or simply ignore any restrictions put in place.

The story is told through Frank’s eyes and it’s largely structured as a stream of consciousness account of his time at the hotel, his thoughts about the funeral he attends and those he meets there. He also reflections on the people and events that he deems to have been most important to him through his adult life. Aside from his ex-wife and his exciting but needy (and significantly younger) one time lover, his now deceased friend/ex-boss and his son are figures who feature largely in his thoughts. But his introspection is jarred by the discovery of a family of non-guests living secretly in the hotel. What is he to do about this?

Frank is at once a haunted soul who is struggling to put his life into an acceptable context and a man who is now conflicted as to whether he has reached the end of the road or if, potentially, a new track of tarmac might be opening up in front of him. As someone some ten years younger that Frank I found some of this slightly scary – is this what I’ve got to look forward to? Thankfully, the story is suffused with just enough intrigue to offset the pathos that might have otherwise have smothered it. I liked Frank and recognised something of myself in him, a little but not too much! I enjoyed his wry observations – like me, he’s a big people watcher – I admired his devil may care attitude to the real danger he faced and I also really liked how the book ended, something I often find a bit of a let down.

I’d previously read the author’s A Season with Verona: Travels Around Italy in Search of Illusion, National Character . . . and Goals! in which he travels around Italy following this rather unfashionable provincial football team. But that was many years ago, and now I wonder why I’ve not dipped into his work again since. I plan to put that right, Tim Parks is a fine writer with interesting things to say. I want to hear more of it.

Not sure this was my favourite novel of the year. I have read quite a few related to the pandemic and I may just be a little fatigued with them.

The author clearly has writing skills but not sure this was the best use of them.