The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

THE PARAGON HOTEL by Lyndsay Faye is an exciting mystery and a fun read with serious undertones, described as “blending film noir and screwball comedy” by The Wall Street Journal. This new novel, set mostly in the Prohibition-era 1920s, revolves around Alice James (who is called Nobody for her ability to fade into the background).  It alternates between her life in New York’s Harlem, where she works for The Spider and his gang fighting the Clutched Hand and organized crime, and her escape to Portland, Oregon where she recovers from bullet wounds at The Paragon, the city’s Black owned and run hotel.   

On both coasts, readers meet Alice’s friends and associates, adopted families of a sort. These include childhood playmate Nicolo Benenati, Harry Chipchase (a corrupt cop), Blossom Fontaine (an African American singer), and do-gooder Evelina Vaughan (also wife of Portland’s Chief of Police), plus many more. On the West Coast, a little mulatto boy goes missing and the Klan is becoming increasingly active and brazen in their threatening actions. Alice sets out to help her friends and solve the disappearance while also reflecting on the actions which brought her to Portland.  Throughout, her voice is caustic and observant:

“The truth is, I’ve been shoving thoughts underwater like unwanted puppies.  When your world is emptied, you cling to strangers…”

“I remember fleeing New York, still adrift with the shock and clutching my carpetbag as if it were a tree limb midriver.”

And describing the teacher of the weekly Self-Betterment classes at The Paragon as “top drawer in a very tall bureau.”

As the author notes explain, Faye’s historical fiction is based on fact and she uses excerpts from local papers and period speeches to encourage readers to think about Oregon’s racist history, including the Klan’s slogan advocating America First.  For more on the Klan in this time period, especially in the northern states, see Linda Gordon’s The Second Coming of the KKK. Definitely worth a read, THE PARAGON HOTEL received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Library Journal.