Megan Nolan lives in London and was born in 1990 in Waterford, Ireland. Her essays, fiction and reviews have been published in
The New York Times,
The White Review,
The Sunday Times,
The Village Voice,
The Guardian and in the literary anthology,
Winter Papers. She writes a fortnightly column for the
New Statesman.
Nolan's newly released debut novel is
Acts of Desperation.
At Lit Hub she tagged six titles on unrequited love and unmet obsession, including:
John Irving, The Hotel New Hampshire
There are some scenes so incongruous that I wonder years later if I dreamed them, most notably the ending of Stephen King’s IT when seven children engage in group sex to defeat a demon. I have sometimes 
experienced this with The Hotel New Hampshire, a book I treasured dearly as a 15 year old and whose maxim “You’ve got to get obsessed and stay obsessed” inspired me to get a tattoo simply reading “OBSESSED.” Can it really be the case, I ask myself, that there is a scene in this beloved book of my childhood where a brother and sister have an exhaustive amount of sex with each other to expel themselves of their incestuous lust? Indeed it is, but somehow it feels much more plausible and moving than the bare facts account for. Franny loves John too but really it’s John’s lifelong dedication to his wounded sister that they are putting to bed when they do so. Like so much in John Irving’s work, you either buy in or you don’t and all these years later I still do, somehow.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
The Hotel New Hampshire is among
Rick Moody's top six books that take place in hotels and
Mark Watson's top ten hotel novels.
--Marshal Zeringue
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