My book club is reading The Grand Design by Joy Callaway this month. This historical novel features trendsetting interior designer Dorothy Draper. It is a fictionalized account of Ms Draper’s debutante days and her renovation of the legendary Greenbrier following WWII. I was disappointed in this book. It was heavy on romance, and light on her design theories and inspirations. I also didn’t much like any of the characters. And it is heavily fictionalized. While I don’t mind that in a novel in which little is known about the main character’s personal life, Draper is famous, and many of the things in the novel are just plain made up. It just seemed like a fluff piece to me. As I state in other reviews of books I don’t particularly like, opinions on books are subjective. There are a lot of glowing reviews of this book. Use your judgment on whether it may be the book for you. Joy Callaway is a gifted writer, so this book will not keep me from trying more by her.
Audience: Adults.
(I borrowed this book through the Kindle Unlimited program. All opinions expressed are mine alone.)
Dorothy Draper has one last chance to prove she chose the right course for her life. With the restoration of The Greenbrier resort at her fingertips, Dorothy aspires to give new life to a place that’s sentimental to her, and to bring a new spark to interior design.
In 1908, young Dorothy Tuckerman chafes under the bland, beige traditions of her socialite circles. Only the aristocracy’s annual summer trips to The Greenbrier resort in West Virginia spark her imagination. In this naturally beautiful place, an unexpected romance with an Italian racecar driver gives Dorothy a taste of the passion and adventure she wants. But her family intervenes, sentencing Dorothy to the life she hopes to escape.
Thirty-eight years later, as World War II draws to a close, Dorothy has done everything a woman in the early twentieth century should not: she has divorced her husband—scandalous—and established America’s first interior design firm—shocking. Now, Dorothy returns to The Greenbrier with the assignment to restore it to something even greater than its original glory. With her beloved company’s future hanging in the balance and brimming with daring, unconventional ideas, Dorothy has one more chance to give her dreams wings or succumb to her what society tells her is her inescapable fate.
Based on the true story of famed designer Dorothy Draper, The Grand Design is a moving tale of one woman’s quest to transform the walls that hold her captive.
Joy Callaway is the international bestselling author of The Grand Design, The Fifth Avenue Artists Society, and Secret Sisters. She lives in Charlotte, NC with her family.
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