The House of Dreams

Starred review from February 1, 2016
At a time when the world was becoming increasingly nightmarish, something called the House of Dreams offered artists a refuge. In the early 1940s, an American journalist named Varian Fry oversaw a covert operation in Marseilles to help intellectuals escape France and the Nazi threat. Brown, the author of The Perfume Garden (2015), beautifully intertwines aspects of Fry's real-life story with the fictional tale of an artist he helped, Gabriel Lambert. Lambert came to the villa outside Marseilles haunted by a tragedy, which corrodes his thoughts even as he courts the lively daughter of the neighboring family. Decades after his escape, Lambert is badgered by a young journalist with a personal connection to his story to reveal the truth about his past. Brown brings a cinematic sensibility to her writing, making the long-ago exploits of Fry and his cohorts pulse with life, with an ever-present sense of danger looming overhead. There is much to admire about this novel and its strong cast of characters, most of all its portrayal of the costand legacyof real courage.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)