The Paragon Hotel

In "The Paragon Hotel," set in 1921, "Nobody" Alice James escapes from Prohibition-era Harlem to Portland, seeking refuge at an all-black hotel after surviving a violent past with the Mafia. With a bullet wound and a cache of illicit cash, she befriends Max, a Pullman porter, but soon discovers that the hotel’s residents live in fear of the encroaching Ku Klux Klan. As Alice navigates complex relationships with the hotel's eclectic lodgers, she becomes embroiled in the search for a missing mulatto child, confronting both the societal horrors around her and the shadows of her own history. This richly imagined tale by Lyndsay Faye explores the depths of America's past and the resilience of the human spirit.