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.
