The Way Inn takes the polished surfaces of modern life, the branded coffee and the free wifi, and twists them into a nightmare. 'The Way Inn' is a global chain of identikit mid-budget hotels, and Neil Double is a valued member of its loyalty scheme. Neil is a professional conference-goer, a man who will attend trade fairs, expos and conventions so you don't have to. This life of anonymised, budget travel would be hell for most, but it's a kind of paradise for Neil, who has turned his incognito professional life into a toxic personal philosophy. But Neil is about to change. In a brand new Way Inn in an airport hinterland, he meets a woman - a woman he has seen before in bizarre and unsettling circumstances. She hints at being in possession of an astonishing truth about this mundane world. And then she disappears. Fascinated, and with his professional life unravelling, Neil tries to find the woman again. In doing so he is drawn into the appalling secret that lurks behind the fake smiles and muzak of the hotel...
Praise for Care of Wooden Floors: 'Funny and richly poetic...a surreal, farcical, original first novel The Times Books of the Year
'A very funny novel combining schadenfreude and belly laughs. Just don't let Wiles flat-sit for you.' Independent
'This is a terrific first novel, written with a very engaging deadpan wit, and an understated sense of the absurd.' Kate Saunders, The Times
'ingenious...his story has something in common, in terms of manic sensitivity, with Edgar Allan Poes' The Tell
-Tale Heart...[with] deft and precise descriptive asides. This is a smart and polished debut. Daily Telegraph
'This novel acquires the queasy allure of a cliff edge, the sense of impending catastrophe becoming strangely compelling...addictive and rather clever, too.' Daily Mail
'Funny, beguiling and quietly profound; a wonderfully well-crafted debut.' TLS A nicely turned satire on the notion that the path to spiritual contentment lies in a pristine set of polished wooden floorboards
...Wiles has an eye for beauty, but an even more impressive eye for ugliness... a novel full of impeccably stylish writing... Guardian 'A novel about minimalism and chaos, which reveals more about the interaction of architecture and life than many an earnest treatise. If you want above all a good read, get this one. Guardian Best Architecture Books of the Year
'Highly idiosyncratic, well-written, with a vivid sense of place - compelling.' Michael Frayn
'Care of Wooden Floors is a wonderful work. Precisely constructed, with an eye that sees in between the everyday spaces of our lives, it sheds new light, not only on ourselves, but on the contemporary novel itself.' Lee Rourke, author of The Canal
'The novel's strength lies in Wiles's wry depiction of the battle between chaos and order.' Sunday Times
'entertainingly conjure[s] up a life lived through aesthetics' Art Review
'Wiles is a talent to watch' The Spectator
'Compelling' Independent on Sunday
Author
About Will Wiles
Will Wiles is an architecture and design journalist. He lives in London.
