The highly compelling, real-life setting both makes and breaks The Dollhouse. The Barbizon itself, with all of its former glory and glamour, comes to life in the novel-serving as a lens into the past and providing a strong link between the two women as the story moves back and forth between Rose’s perspective in the present-day, and Darby’s perspective in 1952. Darby first arrived at the Barbizon as a 17-year-old in 1952, back when it was a reputable hot spot for aspiring young models, actresses, editors, writers, and secretaries-“a bevy of princesses holed up in a high tower.” Darby now resides in a rent-controlled apartment directly below the condo occupied by Rose and her boyfriend, Griff, a successful politician and divorced father of two. Rose Lewin is a journalist in her mid-thirties who moves into the former Barbizon Hotel in 2016 and begins digging into the past of her mysterious downstairs neighbor, Darby McLaughlin. This real-life hotel building (now turned condo) provides an intriguing backdrop for Fiona Davis’s debut novel, The Dollhouse, a well-structured dual narrative that tells the story of two fictional women from entirely different eras. Between 19, New York City’s Barbizon Hotel for Women sheltered the likes of Joan Crawford, Grace Kelly, Liza Minnelli, Cybill Shepherd, Candice Bergen, Joan Didion, and Sylvia Plath.
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