After reading the great JANE
STEELE and THE WHOLE ART OF DETECTION was I looking
forward to THE PARAGON HOTEL,
the new Lyndsay Faye novel.
Set in 1921, Alice "Nobody" James arrives in Portland after a harrowing
train ride. Not only has she fled New York, but she's also been shot and
now needs a place to hide. Thanks to Max, a black Pullman porter, she
finds refuge at the Paragon Hotel. The only problem? This is the only
all-black hotel in the city and they are not very keen to have a white
woman staying there. But with Max as well as the wonderful club
singer, Blossom Fontaine, on her side, Alice stays in the hotel. However,
she quickly realizes that not everything is peachy in Portland. The Ku
Klux Klan has arrived in the city and a child disappears from Paragon
Hotel not long after Alice has arrived...
For some reason, I found THE
PARAGON HOTEL a bit hard to both get into and get through.
Don't take me wrong, the story is good and kept my interest. But, I
found this novel harder to read than Faye's previous titles. Nonetheless,
I did find the Paragon Hotel to be an interesting place with all the
different people staying there. I felt that Alice and I didn't click and the
flashbacks to her life in New York didn't help much. Thankfully, Max
and Blossom both intrigued me, along with the rest of the enjoyable
characters who inhabited the Paragon Hotel, and they made this a
worthwhile reading experience. Additionally, the ending had a fabulous
twist that took me completely by surprise! Recommended to historical
fiction fans.
The new and exciting historical thriller by Lyndsay Faye,
author of Edgar-nominated Jane Steele and Gods of
Gotham, which follows Alice "Nobody" from
Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland's the Paragon Hotel.
The year is 1921, and "Nobody" Alice James is on a
cross-country train, carrying a bullet wound and fleeing for
her life following an illicit drug and liquor deal gone
horribly wrong. Desperate to get as far away as possible
from New York City and those who want her dead, she has her
sights set on Oregon: a distant frontier that seems the end
of the line.
She befriends Max, a black Pullman porter who reminds her
achingly of Harlem, who leads Alice to the Paragon Hotel
upon arrival in Portland. Her unlikely sanctuary turns out
to be the only all-black hotel in the city, and its lodgers
seem unduly terrified of a white woman on the premises. But
as she meets the churlish Dr. Pendleton, the stately
Mavereen, and the unforgettable club chanteuse Blossom
Fontaine, she begins to understand the reason for their
dread. The Ku Klux Klan has arrived in Portland in fearful
numbers--burning crosses, inciting violence, electing
officials, and brutalizing blacks. And only Alice, along
with her new "family" of Paragon residents, are willing to
search for a missing mulatto child who has mysteriously
vanished into the Oregon woods.
Why was "Nobody" Alice James forced to escape Harlem? Why do
the Paragon's denizens live in fear--and what other sins are
they hiding? Where did the orphaned child who went missing
from the hotel, Davy Lee, come from in the first place? And,
perhaps most important, why does Blossom Fontaine seem to be
at the very center of this tangled web?
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