Who Lived in THE DOLLHOUSE?

"Davis’s impeccably structured debut is equal parts mystery, tribute to midcentury New York City, and classic love story. . . .
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I didn’t plan to make this rites of passage week, but it’s turning out that way. Yesterday, our pre-teens. Today, coming of age. Maybe. Do you remember the first place you lived all on your own?

I was 20, and, post-college, lived in a cute house (two bedrooms, LR, DR, bath, kitchen, driveway) on Illinois St. in Indianapolis. It was adorable, and such fun to share with my roommate (and still pal) Sharon. Our rent was $100. Total. A month. We scrimped and shared food and painted it ourselves and worked 7 days a week (I had two jobs, as a radio reporter and on weekends as an art galley helper, and Sharon sold real estate) and wow, we were on our own.

But you know the Barbizon? Of course you do. Think how many women were on their own for the first time there? And the brilliant Fiona Davis took that iconic apartment building in NYC and turned it into an acclaimed novel.

Here’s a bit about THE DOLLHOUSE—and I dare you not to gasp with, well, either mad desire to read it, or mad envy for not having thought of it. 

“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.” 

Okay, love it, right?

Fiona and I shared an event with Amy Poeppel (Small Admissions) and  Rachel Hulin (Hey Harry Hey Matilda) in Providence with Robin Kall Homonoff---here we are. (And in real life, we actually were in focus.)  It was great fun, and I’m so pleased to introduce her to you all.

(And we’re giving away a copy of THE DOLLHOUSE to a lucky commenter)
 

HANK: So, Fiona. How did you come up with this brilliant idea?

FIONA DAVIS: I stumbled on it.  A few years ago, I was apartment hunting in New York City and my broker took me to the Barbizon 63 condo, in what used to be the Barbizon Hotel for Women. While I didn’t take the apartment, the building had great bones and an intriguing history – the perfect setting for a work of historical fiction. Built in 1927, the Barbizon Hotel was the go-to place for cultured young women to live in while they worked or studied in New York City, the place where icons like Grace Kelly, Lauren Bacall, Joan Didion and Eudora Welty got their start

HANK: Whoa. Yes, it’s so incredibly intriguing—when you think of all the women who lived there, and the changes that unfolded over the years. And why it existed in the first place! How’d you tackle the approach you’d take?

FIONA: I’d been working as a journalist for many years, but the thought of turning a story idea into fiction was a new one. So I approached it the same way I would an article: do the research, figure out the main characters, make an outline and off you go. “How hard could it be?” I thought to myself.  

HANK: Famous last words. I have said them myself. And so?

FIONA: But as I researched and plotted, my ambition got way ahead of me. Perhaps if I’d stuck to the historical fiction genre, I might have gotten off easy. But I had the insane idea to write about two time periods – the 1950s and today – and not only that, I simply had to add a mystery element into the plot.

HANK: Two timelines, two sets of characters, tons of research to make sure the period details are right, AND make it a mystery?

FIONA: Anyone with good sense might have stopped right there. But I adored the work of paragons like Agatha Christie, Laura Lippman, and Elizabeth George, so it was crucial to me to have a question that was answered at the end of the book, in a way that my readers least suspected.

I’ve never been a fan of books that meander along, examining the minutiae of a person’s soul. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but as a reader, I crave mysteries because they engage not only my imagination, but my powers of reasoning. You know what I’m talking about - that running commentary in your mind as you turn the pages: Was that a red herring? Or a clue? If the author is overtly pointing my attention to this character as the murderer, who else might have done it? So weaving a mystery element in to THE DOLLHOUSE was non-negotiable.

HANK: We’re all with you on that. But back to that setting. Who’d you talk to?

FIONA:  As part of my research, I interviewed ex-guests who’d stayed there in the 1950s and 60s and was surprised to learn there was a lot of talk of ghosts and suicides among the guests, because every so often a distraught young girl would throw herself off the balcony, and that this was often hushed up in the press.

There was my angle. In my book, a heartsick journalist moves into what’s now the Barbizon condo and starts investigating a tragedy that occurred to her downstairs neighbor – an elderly woman with a terrible scar and a dark secret.

HANK: And then what?

FIONA:  Over multiple drafts, the story grew to encompass a number of themes, from women’s roles at work and at home to the challenges of aging, but what kept me sitting at my desk was the fun of revealing the unknown: what really happened back then?

HANK: Well it certainly worked! Here’s the rest of that PW starred review! “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." 

Hurray!

I don’t think anything as glamorous and suspenseful happened in my first place alone—does cutthroat Charades count? But I treasure that time.  How about you, Reds? The first time you lived on our own—not school—where was it?

And we’ll give away a copy of THE DOLLHOUSE to one lucky commenter!

  

Fiona can be found on her website, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  

Fiona Davis

Fiona was born in Canada and raised in New Jersey, Utah and Texas. She began her career in New York City as an actress, where she worked on Broadway, off-Broadway and in regional theater. After 10 years, she changed careers, working as an editor and writer and specializing in health, fitness, nutrition, dance and theater. 

She’s a graduate of the College of William and Mary and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and is based in New York City. She loves nothing better than hitting farmer’s markets on weekends in search of the perfect tomato, and traveling to foreign cities steeped in history, like London and Cartagena. THE DOLLHOUSE is her first novel.

THE DOLLHOUSE

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.