The Listeners by Maggie Stiefvater
A book review
The Listeners is a novel set in a luxury hotel and spa, the Avallon, in West Virginia during the first few months of 1942. The hotel is run with perfection by general manager June Hudson, protégée of Mr. Francis Gilfoyle, the hotel’s recently deceased owner. Born in a small Appalachian coal mining town, she came to him as a young orphan with a gift for listening to and managing the sweetwater springs that run beneath the hotel. This sweetwater can heal, but it can also destroy.
The United States has already entered World War II after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Now, the State Department has decided to house Axis diplomats from Germany, Japan, and Italy in the Avallon until they could be deported and exchanged for American diplomats being held as prisoners abroad. The diplomats and their families are the responsibility of FBI Special Agent Tucker Rye Minnick, Special Agent Hugh Calloway, Special Agent Pony Harris, Benjamin Pennybacker of the State Department, and forty Border Patrol agents. June Hudson and all the staff of the Avallon, unhappy with the situation, nevertheless were to make sure the prisoners were treated well in keeping with the hotel’s reputation for pampering to their very wealthy guests.
Right from the beginning, June was afraid their presence of these Axis prisoners would turn the sweet water. She was well aware “[t]hat the water would give you good if you gave it good, and it would give you ill if you gave it ill…If the water turned, a place would be ruined for years.” (pg 51)
More interesting than the actual story are the few main characters, and yes, the hotel is definitely a main character in its own right. It is a massive structure on sprawling grounds that keeps its ultra wealthy clientele isolated from the rest of the world. And, of course, it has its own secrets.
June grew up in a mining town not far from the hotel. She never knew her father, and was abandoned by her mother as a young girl. Although she had the magic touch for listening to the water, she had to work her way up to general manager, learning all aspects of the business along the way. The one thing that bothered me about June was that she never lost her mountain way of speaking, and it seemed that for a person holding such a important position, dealing with some of the wealthiest people in the world, Mr. Gilfoyle would have insisted that she learn to speak without using the word ain’t and sounding like a hillbilly. It had always been her hope that one day Edgar Gilfoyle, Mr. Gilfoyls’s son, would marry her despite his playboy ways. That is, until she met Tucker Rye Minnick.
Tucker had also grown up in a coal mining town, which he left when he went to college, later working his way up in the FBI. He couldn’t tolerate the smell and sound of the sweetwater that is the hotel’s mainstay, and eventually has to be moved into to only cabin that was sweetwater free. The first thing June noticed about Tucker was his coal tattoo, so she knew he was a fellow mountaineer (in the sense of a person from a mountainous area, not a mountain climber). And of course, Tucker has his own secrets which are catching up to him.
Lastly, there is Hannelore Wolfe, the young daughter of the German cultural attaché. She doesn’t speak, though she does understand several languages, and she measures the world around by how many seconds something takes. Hannelore also has a gift for understanding the sweetwater, but there is more than one reason why June feels a real connection to this little girl. June also knows that Hannelore is heading to certain death when she returns to Germany.
The Listeners is clearly a character driven story, and that makes it interesting, as does some of the historical information upon which it is based. The storyline itself was just ok, despite being seeped in magical realism. I am more familiar with Stiefvater’s YA novels, most of which I have really enjoyed, so naturally I was curious to read her first adult novel, and while I wasn’t disappointed, it did lack a certain something, which I have come to realize is more editing.
The novel is based on true events of the time when America actually did place enemy diplomats in luxury hotels all over the country while they awaited deportation. Harvey Solomon details this in his Smithsonian Magazine article “When the Greenbrier and Other Appalachian Resorts Became Prisons for Axis Diplomats”.
I was especially interested in reading this book because my mom was born in West Virginia, andI have family ties to the part of the state in which the story is set. In fact, a sibling of my 4th great grandmother actually owned the Greenbrier Hotel and Spa that was mentioned several times in the story and upon which the Avallon is clearly modeled.
On a really personal note: when I read about Tucker’s coal tattoo, I couldn’t imagine it was a regular tattoo, so I googled it. Turns out, it is the bluish mark under a person’s skin when they have been in a coal mine explosion, and I had seen coal tattoos every time I looked at my dad. My dad was a Welshman, who can to this country alone as a teenager. He went to Scranton, Pennsylvania where there were people he could stay with. He worked odd jobs for a while, but eventually, because of the Depression, he found himself in a coal mine, which ultimately exploded. My dad had blue marks all over his face and body, and debris in his lungs for the rest of his life.
The Listeners was published in June 2025 by Viking/Penguin Random House.