North Beach Hotel

After twenty years abroad and his wife's recent suicide, Marty Burns washes ashore in San Francisco completely destitute. Back in the land of the free and home of the brave he feels neither. Disoriented by culture shock, preyed upon by ghosts from a haunted past, he falsifies his résumé to become manager of a fleabag hotel. Marty scrambles to hide his duplicity while trying to survive the tumult of a hospitality madhouse.



On Patrick Pfister



"Pfister has both sense and sensibility. He also has a dry sense of humor and a fine, muscular writing style... a novelist's eye for fringe characters and ear for dialogue."

Los Angeles Times



"Pfister is an awfully good writer."

Jack Beatty, The Atlantic Monthly



"...a person of keen eye and sensibility... he conveys brilliantly the exhilaration of seeking, of trying, or reaching beyond, no matter where it takes you."

Toledo Blade



"... Pfister interweaves the mystical and the everyday... His words are honest, insightful, and very personal..."

Library Journal



"Pfister is really good. Go with him."

New Orleans Times-Picayune