Horizontal Hotel – Roger King

In Roger King’s Horizontal Hotel, Africa is both a physical location and “an area of our minds.”… The novel spans only one day, but that day encompasses a long mental journey.

Meddows has a fever, and King’s writing is intense and feverish, full of the minute observations of an obsessed and prophetic eye: “Outside, a mist of pink Saharan dust loiters oppressively”–the world seems tinted, slightly askew.

King explores the subtleties of the neo-colonial relationship of white men working within a black government, where the rules of the game are less strictly defined. Meddows’ boss Adrian is a typical well-intentioned technocrat, aloof from the society he is trying to plan. His colleague Obi, on the other hand is an African on the make, whose favourite word is “modern.” Meddows’ own response is to experience Africa raw and to dance the night away at the Horizontal Hotel.