The Hotel on Place Vendome

November 25, 2013
The Paris Hôtel Ritz evokes 20th-century glamour, smoke-filled air, and hard-drinking patrons with names like Picasso, Proust, Hemingway, and Chanel. WWII, however, brought Nazis, adding to the odd mix of Allied spies posing as German officers, members of the Resistance, and ambitious American journalists desperate to score the next scoop. Mazzeo (The Secret of Chanel No. 5) enthrallingly depicts a hotbed of both the magnificent and the mundane, the careless carousing and deep-seated tensions that kept the hotel a primary meeting place for both Allied and Axis agents. While the book doesn’t deal directly in scenes of intrigue between key figures, its colorful vignettes reveal the hotel’s role in the unsuccessful Valkyrie operation and the struggles of Coco Chanel and a one-name French movie star to survive their “horizontal collaborations.” The stories of the hotel staff members who publicly served Hitler’s trusted officials while privately supporting the Resistance reveal particularly heroic undertakings. Readers will enjoy Mazzeo’s fascinating collection of secretive, scheming historical characters, all under one elegant roof. 19 b&w photos.

May 1, 2014

Mazzeo's (Back Lane Wineries of Sonoma) most recent biography of a luxury locale tells the story of the Paris Ritz at perhaps its most compelling historical moment--as the epicenter of Hitler's occupied Paris. Opening with a dramatic scene in the midst of the Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906), the author chronicles a destination frequented by the upper crust, or gratin, of an increasingly international Parisian society. The focus of Mazzeo's light and entertaining narrative is less on the hotel itself than on the various personages, from novelists Marcel Proust and F. Scott Fitzgerald to the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to actresses Arletty and Marlene Dietrich, who made it their home. The World War II period takes up the bulk of the work despite an intended broader approach. The intriguing anecdotes Mazzeo offers about longtime visitors and residents occasionally need further inquiry, and the snippets of deep research do not merge into a coherent, unified story. VERDICT This book will appeal to readers interested in World War II and aficionados of the Lost Generation but will disappoint those in search of a clean, singular history of the hotel.--Kelsey Berry, Holderness Sch., NH

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