Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis The Dollhouse : Book summary and reviews of The Dollhouse by Fiona Davis. Fiona Davis's novel pulls readers into the lush world of New York City's glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side-by-side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon's glitzy past. "The Dollhouse. That's what we boys like to call it. The Barbizon Hotel for Women, packed to the rafters with pretty little dolls. Just like you." When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren't: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn't belong - a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she's introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that's used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance. Over half a century later, the Barbizon's gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby's involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman's rent- controlled apartment. It's a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose Lewin, Darby's upstairs neighbor, to resist - not to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose's obsession deepens, the ethics of her investigation become increasingly murky, and neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed. Reviews "Beyond the Book" articles Free books to read and review (US only) Find books by time period, setting & theme Read-alike suggestions by book and author Book club discussions and much more! Just $12 for 3 months or $39 for a year. Reviews. Media Reviews. "Starred Review. Davis's impeccably structured debut is equal parts mystery, tribute to midcentury New York City, and classic love story… Darby and Rose, in alternating chapters, weave intricate threads into twists and turns that ultimately bring them together; the result is good old- fashioned suspense." - Publishers Weekly. "Fans of Suzanne Rindell's Three-Martini Lunch will enjoy this debut's strong sense of time and place as the author brings a legendary New York building to life and populates it with realistic characters who find themselves in unusual situations." - Library Journal. "Despite moments of liveliness, this period piece fails to ignite much warmth, let alone a spark." - Kirkus. "Davis delivers a fast-paced, richly-imagined debut that's almost impossible to put down." - Kathleen Tessaro, author of The Perfume Collector. "Davis expertly weaves together the stories of several women who lived in the Barbizon during its heyday in the 1950s, and the broken-hearted journalist who decides to get the 'scoop' on a decades-old tragedy that happened in the building. A fun, page-turning mystery." - Suzanne Rindell, author of The Other Typist and Three-Martini Lunch. "Two coming-of-age stories rolled into an ode to New York City and the young women - of past and present - who have tried to forge lives and careers there. Poetic, romantic, crushing, and soulful." - Jules Moulin, author of Ally Hughes Has Sex Sometimes. This information about The Dollhouse shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added. Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published. THE DOLLHOUSE. Fiona Davis's stunning debut novel pulls readers into the lush world of New York City's glamorous Barbizon Hotel for Women, where in the 1950s a generation of aspiring models, secretaries, and editors lived side by side while attempting to claw their way to fairy-tale success, and where a present-day journalist becomes consumed with uncovering a dark secret buried deep within the Barbizon's glitzy past. When she arrives at the famed Barbizon Hotel in 1952, secretarial school enrollment in hand, Darby McLaughlin is everything her modeling agency hall mates aren't: plain, self-conscious, homesick, and utterly convinced she doesn't belong—a notion the models do nothing to disabuse. Yet when Darby befriends Esme, a Barbizon maid, she's introduced to an entirely new side of New York City: seedy downtown jazz clubs where the music is as addictive as the heroin that's used there, the startling sounds of bebop, and even the possibility of romance. Over half a century later, the Barbizon's gone condo and most of its long-ago guests are forgotten. But rumors of Darby's involvement in a deadly skirmish with a hotel maid back in 1952 haunt the halls of the building as surely as the melancholy music that floats from the elderly woman's rent- controlled apartment. It's a combination too intoxicating for journalist Rose Lewin, Darby's upstairs neighbor, to resist—not to mention the perfect distraction from her own imploding personal life. Yet as Rose's obsession deepens, the ethics of her investigation become increasingly murky, and neither woman will remain unchanged when the shocking truth is finally revealed. THE DOLLHOUSE. A debut novel about the renowned Barbizon Hotel and the generations of women who might have lived there. Darby McLaughlin is a plain girl from a small Ohio town. In 1952, she moves to New York to enroll in secretarial school. Her father has died, her mother remarried, and Darby, who doesn’t expect much in the way of marriage prospects, would like to find a way to support herself. She moves into the Barbizon Hotel for Women, famed residence for luminaries such as Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, and others. By some administrative fluke, Darby is placed on a floor of aspiring models, among whom she doesn’t exactly feel at home. She’s lonely and struggling when she meets Esme, a young maid who works at the hotel. As the two become friends, Esme draws Darby into an underworld of jazz and drugs. She even convinces the shy Darby to perform at a nightclub. Darby’s story is intertwined with another, set more than 50 years later. Rose Lewin, a journalist, is living at the Barbizon, which now houses condos, and working on a story about the hotel’s earlier, more glamorous days. Rose’s personal life is disintegrating, but as it does, she delves deeper into her story, interviewing longtime residents and becoming obsessed with a certain “Miss McLaughlin” who lives in the apartment beneath her own. She begins to uncover a conspiracy of hidden identity, drug trafficking, and undercover police. This is Davis’ debut novel, and it’s a lively one, tripping along at a sprightly clip. But her story lacks emotional depth, and her characters never quite come alive. The conspiracy isn’t convincing, and, worse than that, neither is her 1950s New York. Neither the Barbizon nor the spicy, mysterious nightlife outside it ever quite evoke the vivid portrait that Davis seems to have sought. Instead, her flat characters stay trapped in their flat landscape. Despite moments of liveliness, this period piece fails to ignite much warmth, let alone a spark. The Dollhouse. I have always been intrigued by the history of buildings, whether I’m wandering around Blenheim Palace in England or the Tenement Museum in New York City. During an apartment hunt a couple of years ago, I was brought to the Barbizon 63 condo on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, formerly known as the Barbizon Hotel for Women. Built in 1927, the Barbizon stands out among its neighbors, a 23-story tower of salmon-colored brick studded with Gothic and Moorish architectural elements. It housed thousands of women, including several icons-in-the-making like Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford, Joan Didion, Eudora Welty and Sylvia Plath. Potential guests were required to provide three character references and, once registered, obey the hotel’s strict dress codes and rules. The contradiction between establishing one’s independence while being treated like a child seemed to capture the paradoxical message of that time period: You can pretend to be a career girl for now, as long as you settle down and have a family once Prince Charming puts a ring on it. I’d seen photos of the hotel before the renovation, and the change was striking. What had been a virtual beehive of small rooms off dark hallways was transformed in 2005 into sleek apartments with rosewood floors and marble bathrooms. When the broker mentioned that a dozen or so longtime residents had been “grandfathered” into the building after it went condo and were sequestered in rental units on the fourth floor, I couldn’t help but wonder how they viewed the changes that had been made to the building—and the equally dramatic transformation of their city—after so many decades in residence. What a perfect setup for a novel. As a journalist, I love crafting a story from research and interviews, and when I decided to write the book I approached the project in the same way. In addition to reading everything I could get my hands on about the hotel and that era, I interviewed several women who lived in the Barbizon during the 1950s and ’60s. I looked through women’s magazines from the early ’50s and scoured old issues of the New York Times to get a sense of what day-to-day life was like back then. The more I researched, the more pressing it became to provide a glimpse into the way women were expected to live and behave in the early ’50s, and show just how hard it was to break out of that mold. For example, one women’s magazine from 1951 suggested that women stick to part- time jobs so as not to interfere with the “satisfactions of housekeeping.” Another dictated that a woman dining out with a man should never speak directly to the waiter. Talk about being voiceless! Since the conversation regarding women’s roles continues even today, I included parallel timelines in the book: Darby shows up at the Barbizon Hotel in 1952, eager to do well at secretarial school and never marry. Rose, who moves into the condo of today, finds herself in a prickly situation with her boyfriend. In The Dollhouse , two very different generations of women challenge each other to stand up and be counted. The book is definitely a love letter to New York City, my home for the past 30 years, and the city played a large role in my research. A visit to Lior Lev Sercarz’s legendary spice shop in midtown, La Boîte, gave me the idea for developing one character’s passion for blending spices. When I decided to include a downtown jazz club as a setting, I signed up for a class on bebop at Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Swing University, taught by the brilliant trombonist Vincent Gardner. It seemed that inspiration was everywhere. The Barbizon Hotel holds a special place in the hearts of the women who stayed there, as a refuge where they launched successful careers and declared their independence. Every time I pass by, I look up and marvel at the beauty of the building and feel the same thrill I did a few years ago, when I first realized there was a novel within its walls waiting to be told. The cycle of inspiration continues. Fiona Davis worked as a stage actress for nearly 10 years before becoming a freelance journalist and writer. A graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she now lives in New York City. The Dollhouse , her first novel, is the story of a 21st-century journalist who uncovers a 50-year-old mystery in the Barbizon Hotel for Women. This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.