______________ 'Eccentric, disgracefully funny and shockingly beautiful by turns; determined both to describe the world as it really is and to invent it anew' - Guardian 'Powerful ... full of telling period detail and couched in White's customary honeyed prose ... This is a tender and moving book worthy of its distinguished protagonist' - Daily Mail 'The masterfully multi-layered Hotel de Dream is an illuminating commentary on storytelling' - Financial Times 'White's imaginative recreations of Crane's work provide the novel's best passages ... his mimetic prose is marvellously convincing ... engrossing' - Sunday Times______________A moving, expertly crafted novel from one of New York's most prolific authors. The famed writer Stephen Crane is travelling to a German clinic in search of a cure for the tuberculosis that threatens his life. Knowing it may be his last chance, he dictates the story of 'The Painted Boy', inspired by a real-life encounter. But as the story delves into the seedy underworld of turn-of-the-century Manhattan, Crane's health deteriorates and the outcome of the story becomes as critical as the author's life itself.