THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2019 // 19
BOOKMONGER
Check into the
riveting ‘Paragon Hotel’
For a slinky, oh-so-sly,
hard-to-put-down mystery,
look no further than Lynd-
say Faye’s latest novel,
“The Paragon Hotel.”
Faye, who grew up in
Longview, Wash., has traf-
fi cked, variously, in sto-
ries that have revived Sher-
lock Holmes, reconceived
of Jane Eyre as a serial
killer and investigated big-
city crime in the pre-Civil
War era.
For her latest book, Faye
introduces Alice “Nobody”
James, a moll in Prohibi-
tion-era New York. In the
opening chapter, Nobody
gets some lead pumped into
her, courtesy of a dustup
with the Mob, and escapes
on a westbound train.
Our antiheroine becomes
increasingly feverish as
she crosses the country in
a Pullman car. But Max,
a chivalrous porter who
boards in Chicago, takes
Nobody under his wing.
When they get to Port-
land in the middle of the
night and she refuses to
seek medical attention, he
escorts her instead to the
Paragon Hotel.
This turns out to be an
all-black establishment with
a doctor on the premises –
a black doctor – who will
tend to her wounds. But the
doc is just as unenthusias-
tic as Nobody about getting
found out.
Portland is a staunchly
Jim Crow city with a grow-
ing Ku Klux Klan pres-
ence. Black-white relations
are not just discouraged,
they’re punished. So folks
at the Paragon are deeply
motivated to keep Nobody’s
presence hush-hush – which
turns out not to be a bad
THIS WEEK’S BOOK
“The Paragon Hotel”
By Lyndsay Faye
G.P. Putnam’s Sons – 432 pp
— $26
thing for a woman who is
trying to hide from the Mob
while recuperating from
gunshot wounds.
But not everybody at the
Paragon is unwelcoming.
When he is in town, Max
is a staunch ally, with the
potential for being some-
thing more, if miscegena-
tion weren’t a thing.
Little Davy Lee is a
charmer, a mulatto child
whom everyone adores. He
was adopted as a foundling
by another hotel resident,
club chanteuse Blossom
Fontaine, when she was per-
forming in Seattle.
And Blossom “adopts”
Nobody, too, recognizing a
fellow odd-duck.
Over late-night whiskies,
the chanteuse confi des, “We
go through our lives, so
many of us, as fractions of
ourselves, with all the other
puzzle pieces buried where
no one can see them.”
This story is told in
then and now chapters –
as Nobody recuperates,
she refl ects on the events
back East that got her into
her current fi x. From an
early age, she’d been a
resourceful asset for one
of New York’s rising Mob
bosses. Chameleon-like,
she changed outfi ts and atti-
tudes, blended in without
being noticed and gathered
useful information.
Now she knows too
much to be safe in her
hometown.
But when young Davy
goes missing – possibly
kidnapped from a Port-
land amusement park – and
police can’t be bothered to
look for a child of color,
Nobody has just the tools
and temperament to unravel
this mystery.
She navigates the Pro-
hibition era’s racism, sub-
stance abuse, changing
sexual mores and gen-
der roles, as well as cor-
ruption, complacency and
deceit. And in working to
uncover Davy Lee’s fate,
she begins to defi ne her
own purpose and identity
as well – no longer just a
Nobody.
“The Paragon Hotel”
is a fi ve-star read.
The Bookmonger is
Barbara Lloyd McMi-
chael, who writes this
weekly column focus-
ing on the books,
authors and publish-
ers of the Pacifi c
Northwest. Contact
her at bkmonger@nwlink.
com
appsolutely
we have you covered
Fresh Oregon Hood
sTRAWBERRIES
Available Now!
Monday - Saturday
11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
v
Watch for us at the corner of
Marlin & 101 at Fast Lube in
Warrenton.
Call 503-359-5204 for more info.
Picked
Our e-edition is available
24/7 on any device*
EVERYWHERE
YOU ARE!
Call 800-781-3211 to subscibe
*All apps are free to download. Must be a subscriber to view e-edition.
Daily!