The Paragon Hotel

This is the third Lyndsay Faye novel I've read, and by now I'm convinced she either has a research team of a hundred, or a time machine. Her ear and eye for varied time periods are that good, and yet she's able to stamp each book with her own graceful, surprising style.In this one we have a gun moll on the run from the New York mafia (in the 20s) and lands in Oregon. In the only black-run and owned hotel in Portland. In a time when blacks were barely tolerated on Oregon, and the KKK was on the rise. And she finds that the inhabitants of the hotel have nearly as many secrets among them as she harbors herself, including a slinky black chanteuse who believes that if she knew all HER secrets, she might just not hate her. And as the secrets unravel, we alternately love and hate and are enthralled by the characters.Can you tell I enjoyed the novel?

Lyndsay Faye creates a fascinating and often gripping tale of Harlem and Portland back in the early 1920s with great characters and a plot that twists and turns magically. The main character, Alice James, a white mob girl, fleeing a serious dust-up in Harlem, finds herself recuperating from wounds in an all black hotel on the other side of the country — the Paragon in the title — and before long she is swept up in a series of events that pit her and her new friends against the KKK which is emerging in Portland and Oregon with terrifying force. I was struck by the careful research provided at the beginning of each chapter in snippets from actual documents from those times showing how deeply racism had been institutionalized in Oregon. I was moved by the heroism of the women characters as well as that of some men. Faye is great at characterization and skilled at creating vivid scenes. She also does an impressive job of rendering dialogue in historically accurate ways. While a page turner in some ways, The Paragon Hotel is also a book to be savored, so sometimes I laid it aside for a day in order to taste and enjoy without rushing prematurely to the end. There are some surprises as the story comes to its end which are moving and quite stunning. I will now want to read her other novels.

I loved this book to pieces and it's characters grew to me slowly, like those wondrous cakes in the oven. The historical side of the novel, is thoroughly researched and amazingly blended throughout the book.First of All, there is the New York mafia where it all began, the young Nobody who will flee to her rediscovery of self, while in Portland, Oregon. Secondly, with a big wow, there is Portland and its racism, with amazing snippets from publications about race and segregation, MMM and its horrid actions. Last but not least, the oasis for colored people - the lovely Paragon Hotel, where everyone of color is welcome and feels like royalty at home somehow, yet everyone is certainly spied on at the same time.Amazing plot with delightful complexity. Nobody's character going through great development. While together with Blossom they embody the strong American women ready to take life in her own hands, unlike previous generations. Hence touching the rise of feminism in a delicate, yet decisive way.Thank you, Lyndsay Faye, for writing this beauty: it soothes the soul and strengthens the spirit, teaches us all so much about the 1920s and the strong characters who fought for their rights above all. The love stories hidden between the lines were also spot on. Everyone should read this book.

This book was assigned for a book club I belong to on zoom. It's historical fiction and tracks the KKK in the state of Oregon in the 1920's. The protagonist and narrator is put into the only black hotel in town when she flees her abusers in New York City. Max, the porter, saves her and takes her to the hotel to heal. She meets many interesting people there and has harrowing experiences. I didn't know the state of Oregon was trying to stay all white! Some scenes are hard to read because of brutal imagery but the book is a winner.

I'm the sort of smug, Sherlockian mystery-reader who -- by the time the bodies are cooling into the third act -- is certain he's got it All Figured Out. I'll dismiss the red herrings out of hand and chortle with great condescension at the author's efforts to sneak a subtle clue under my nose that the story's detective will only grasp at the 11th hour. So it was a delight to be constantly surprised by the twists and turns this story takes in both of its dual narratives -- the Now of Klan-haunted Portland and the Then of Mafia-ruled Harlem -- without sacrificing credulity or straining belief. As a product of Jazz Age Harlem the narrator, Alice "Nobody" James, is as singular and authentic voice as I've ever read, a real dame with moxie, she's the elephant's eyebrows, see. So don't be a flat tire; grab yourself a sidecar, put up uour dogs, amd do yourself the enormous favor of ripping through this tasty tale.

I won't recap the plot which is complex but oddly believable. This is simply one of the best novels I've ever read. It crosses the multifaceted worlds of organized crime, racism, bigotry, violence, power, and mindless destruction that faced early 20th-C. immigrants and Black people trying simply to live their lives, raise families, be in peace. Against this backdrop of the KKK and mafia both bent on exercising absolute control over the "others", it is a story of powerful courage, love, and community. As outsized as the characters are drawn, as unorthodox as they may be, they remain, throughout the story, genuinely decent, principled and brave in the face of almost universal hate directed toward them for their simple existence. Their alliances are powerful, and their courage awe inspiring. Their love of one another is glittering in its capacity to make us understand what, in the end, genuinely makes us human. I loved this book and the backdrop of history from New York to Portland,OR. I learned a great deal from it, but the novel's most compelling aspect was the telling of a really strong and fascinating story about people I came to genuinely love.

Having visited Portland a couple of times, I never thought of it as having once been a hotbed of racial hatred. Yet, that’s exactly what’s depicted in “The Paragon Hotel” that takes place in 1921 in the middle of prohibition. Alice James, our protagonist suffers from life-threatening gunshot wounds as she travels west from her home in Harlem when she’s saved by Max, a black Pullman porter. He takes her to the Paragon Hotel where she must come to terms with her past and present circumstances. The political machinations that she thought she’d escaped in Harlem are at least as complicated at the Paragon Hotel. A terrific novel.

Having read all of Lindsay Faye's books I can honestly say that this author is a masterful storyteller who can transport you to another time and place so quickly and effectively that you are barely aware that you have left your own. While this story takes place in the 1920s we still confront corruption, racism and homophobia as did our heroine Nobody and we can learn much from her about the power of love and the possibility of redemption.

Lyndsay took me back to time and place, to experience the frightful experiences of innocent victims of racial discrimination and persecution.Her use of the language, of the period, and of the individual character‘a unique expressions and circumstances , captured my interest and held me there from first to last page.