Book Review: Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky

It's been a month of nonfiction reading for me, which is not my usual December M.O. Once the high retail season kicks in, if I have time to read at all, I read Harry Potter fanfiction. But this month I've read two pieces of non-fiction, almost back to back, and though they are both memoirs, to compare them would be, in television terms, like comparing America's Next Top Whatever to a BBC miniseries.

I first heard about Jacob Tomsky's Heads in Beds a few weeks ago from one of the blogs that I follow, but I just did a search to try to give credit and I could not find it.  If you think you're the one whose review I read, please let me know and I shall modify my post.

Like the aforementioned reviewer, the title made me a little wary. You hear of a hotel book called Heads in Beds and you think perhaps, bedbugs. Or lice. Or other Gross Things. But the subtitle clears up all such wariness: A Reckless Memoir of Hotels, Hustles, and So-Called Hospitality. The publisher is touting it as the Kitchen Confidential of the hospitality industry. I'm actually a fan of Anthony Bourdain's tv persona but his writing is pretty tedious and repetitive and one grows weary of the constant innuendos and sexual metaphors, and I'm sorry to say that Tomsky's writing is no better, and frequently worse, than Bourdain's.

But does that mean I didn't finish or didn't like the book?  Why, no! When you read and sell books for a living, it's hard to waste time on a book filled with patently bad writing, but sometimes, as with a bad reality tv show, you get so caught up in the story that you feverishly race through to the end, and that's just what I did.  As soon as I read that first review, I emailed my sales rep from Random House and asked her if I could have a copy and a few days later I spent my entire day off reading it.

I love to travel, but I usually travel on a budget, so part of my desire to read this book was to glean the secrets of the trade that Tomsky tantalizingly promised on the jacket flap.  But as somebody who is in the service industry every bit as much as Tomsky is (and if you don't think working a retail job qualifies as service, then you've clearly never worked retail) I was also interested in the war stories. Plus the story begins in New Orleans, and I am nothing if not a sucker for all things New Orleanean.

Tomsky started off working valet parking for a chain restaurant called Copeland's in New Orleans but soon applied for the valet parking department of a soon-to-open, unnamed luxury hotel in the Quarter. From there he worked his way quickly to an inside job and from there into management. He loved that job (just as well, since he was working 14-16 hour days) but was filled with wanderlust, so when his savings accumulated sufficiently to go walkabout, he left for Europe.  Upon his return to America, he landed in New York and eventually got sucked up into the industry again, and it's really here that his tales of woe begin.

Tomsky's style of writing is extremely conversational and occasionally repetitive, and yes, as others have pointed out, his language is frequently coarse. He doesn't have much use for being PC and is happy to phonetically spell the spoken "Chingrish" of a Chinese couple when recounting his tales.  He also gives advice ranging from the handy (how to "pre-reg" your room so it will be ready for an early arrival) to the shady (how to get out of any and all minibar charges).

If there is one thing that I took away from this book it's a new awareness of the way I tip.  Many, many pages are devoted to the bellmen, whom I rarely use, but when I do, it will be with greater compensation than I've used in the past. One thing that surprised me, though, was that even though Tomsky was housekeeping manager at some point in this memoir, he never excoriates the reader for not tipping housekeeping on a daily basis. He totally goes off on the reader about a family who didn't tip the bellman for telling stories to their children, but not a word about tipping housekeeping. I can't tell you the number of times I've traveled with friends, family, and colleagues and they always express surprise at my leaving a tip for housekeeping; the few who are aware of that custom are surprised that I do it daily and not at the end of my stay, at which point I explain it's because there is no way of knowing if the same person cleans my room each day or not.

If you're a frequent traveler, or if you enjoy tell-all memoirs from an insider's perspective, OR if you've worked in the service industry yourself, give this book a try. You may just learn a thing or two, and more than once you'll roll your eyes at some people's idea of proper behavior. The book is worth reading, albeit a skimming read.