A review by kittykornerlibrarian
The Paragon Hotel by Lyndsay Faye

5.0

I so enjoy Faye's writing; and her plotting; and her settings; and her characters. This book features Alice (aka Alicia, aka Nobody) who flees New York City in fear of the Italian Mafia in 1921. She ends up at the Paragon Hotel in Portland, Oregon, taking care to flee as far from the reach of the Family as she can. The porter on her Pullman train, a black man named Max, takes her to the Paragon to recover. At the hotel, which caters to a black clientele, Alice becomes aware of racial tensions and the rise of the Klan in Oregon. A disappearing child, an abusive police officer, and a charismatic singer named Blossom are all part of the story. This is an exciting book with a complicated plot and I really enjoyed Alice's voice as she tells her story. It's historical fiction which sheds light onto parts of our country's past that don't usually show up in fiction, which is my favorite kind of historical fiction.