Suzanne Alkaitis Character Analysis in The Glass Hotel

Suzanne Alkaitis is Jonathan Alkaitis’s first wife and mother to their daughter, Claire. Suzanne dies of cancer sometime before the main events of the novel take place, which greatly affects Alkaitis. Alkaitis and Vincent remain legally unmarried because he’s not ready to have a second wife, and they never talk about Suzanne. Although Alkaitis’s lawyer will try to suggest that the Ponzi scheme began as a desperate, fear-incited response to learning of Suzanne’s terminal illness, in fact the fraud began far earlier, in the 1970s, and Suzanne was Alkaitis’s co-conspirator, which Alkaitis liked: it was nice to have someone to be honest with in the midst of a life dominated by fraud. The grisly message that Ella Kaspersky bribes Paul to write on the glass wall of the Hotel Caiette in 2005 comes from a verbal threat Suzanne made toward Kaspersky in the immediate aftermath of the SEC’s fruitless investigation into Alkaitis’s firm, when the couple ran into Kaspersky at a restaurant. On their way out of the restaurant, Kaspersky says something belligerent to Jonathan, and Suzanne responds by urging Kaspersky to “swallow broken glass,” an allusion to a wine glass Kaspersky’s waiter had accidentally broken into her breadbasket. In the aftermath of the implosion of Alkaitis’s Ponzi scheme, Alkaitis can’t help but feel regret that he is weathering its demise with the “wrong woman” by his side. Alkaitis might enjoy Vincent’s company, but Suzanne was his “co-conspirator” and the love of his life.

Suzanne Alkaitis Character Timeline in The Glass Hotel

The timeline below shows where the character Suzanne Alkaitis appears in The Glass Hotel. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...he gives Vincent a ring to wear. The marriage is fake, though, because Jonathan’s wife Suzanne died just three years earlier, and he’s not ready to be married again. Only Vincent... (full context)

Complicity and Interconnectedness Theme Icon

Variations: Jonathan doesn’t talk about Suzanne, “his real wife,” who had died some years ago, though he and Vincent do talk... (full context)

Alienation and Self-Knowledge Theme Icon

...of these people for years, and many of the women were friends with his wife, Suzanne. Vincent leaves Jonathan as he talks to a potential investor and makes her way to... (full context)

...Jonathan is no longer wearing a wedding ring, and Olivia takes this to mean that Suzanne, whom she’s never met, is dead. It’s a sad moment. (full context)

...to the hotel on the island shaped like a palm tree in Dubai. He and Suzanne had gone there and held hands over dinner. It was the year before her diagnosis,... (full context)

...his story, attempting to humanize Jonathan. He speaks of a modest family, Jonathan, Claire, and Suzanne, living in a small, suburban house, taking modest vacations close to home, and visiting parents... (full context)

...Alkaitis admits is not his “favorite person.” They met in 1999 at the Hotel Caiette. Suzanne was sick already and had stayed behind. He hadn’t wanted to leave her but needed... (full context)

Alkaitis’s story continues. Alkaitis and Suzanne have been eating dinner at a favorite restaurant of theirs, Le Veau d’Or, though Suzanne... (full context)

...and tells Alkaitis that he is “beneath [her] contempt.” Alkaitis is stunned into silence. Slowly, Suzanne picks up a shard of broken glass that remains in the breadbasket, places it in... (full context)

...the “unfairness” of the ghosts he’s been forced to see. Why can he not see Suzanne or Lucas? Alkaitis realizes he’s in his counterlife more than he is in reality—that the... (full context)