Joy Recommends
A combination of classic women’s fiction (Think: Jacqueline Susanne’s VALLEY OF THE DOLLS or Mary McCarthy’s THE GROUP), Fiona Davis’s debut novel is a Sundayafternoon pleasure read—that delightful sweet spot between guilty pleasure and social commentary. Okay, maybe that’s just my reading sweet spot, but this one’s a page turner and you really need to grab a copy as soon as possible. I’m a sucker for anything set in New York City, and DOLLHOUSE takes place in New York’s famous Barbizon Hotel for Women. The novel alternates between the 1950s when ‘career women’ and models lived there as they searched for success and husbands and current day when aspiring journalist Rose Lewin, now living in the turned-condo Barbizon, begins to dig into a mystery and scandal and murder concerning some of the hotel’s past residents, a handful of whom still live on the fourth floor in rent controlled apartments. So yeah. Dark secrets. Women constrained by time period and circumstances. And the Barbizon Hotel, which is a real place that once housed many famous women, including actresses Candice Bergen, Grace Kelly, Joan Crawford, and ill-fated author Sylvia Plath, who stayed there during her stint at Mademoiselle Magazine. I mean, seriously, how can you not pick up this book?
A searing analysis of antisemitism, including the radical argument that veneration of drastic history adds to the dehumanization rather than addressing it. Horn's book is also darkly funny amidst the rage. I can't stop thinking about this book.