The Paragon Hotel Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

Print PDF

For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, The Unhappy Paradox of Black Soldiers in World War I and our BookBrowse Review of The Paragon Hotel.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. While Americans study the South's Jim Crow laws as part of U.S. history, fewer people are aware that the Pacific Northwest was envisioned by many of its settlers as a whites-only utopia, a place that would remain free of crime as long as it remained free of people of color. Did this information surprise you? Due to Oregon's geography, did you expect its founders to hold more liberal views regarding race?
2. Jazz music is what first brings Alice and Max together, and mixed-race nightclubs during the Prohibition era were regarded by many social reformers as being a key positive catalyst in breaking down color lines. What is your favorite musical style? Have you ever connected with someone who had a very different upbringing because you enjoyed the same music? Do you see music (or art or performance) as a way of relating to complete strangers?
3. Immediately following the importation of the Mafia from Italy to New York City, the Five Families unleashed terrible violence against their fellow immigrants and exerted tremendous control over local politics and commerce. Alice remarks wryly at one point that it's difficult for her to understand whites abusing blacks, since Italians so strongly preferred to abuse one another (as did the Irish and the Yiddish gangs of New York). In your experience, or in your family history, was your culture more in danger of being terrorized from within or from without?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of G.P. Putnam's Sons. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.