Interview with Elise Hooper

Elise Hooper’s latest novel, published just last Tuesday, explores the power of family secrets—and, more generally, the often hidden lives of women—through the contrasting stories of Tildy Barrows, living in San Francisco in 2024, and Cora Hale, a painter and miniaturist whose career spans the 1910s to the early 1970s. As Hooper notes toward the end of the novel, “Reading is magic.” Indeed, this wonderful story will sweep you into worlds near and far, contemporary and historical, large and small. Read on to find out more from my interview with the author.

What gave you the idea for The Library of Lost Dollhouses?

When I was seven, I received a dollhouse for Christmas that had been built in the late 1800s for my great-grandmother and passed down to my grandmother, then my mother, then me. As a girl, I played with that dollhouse for hours and learned many creative skills—like sewing, knitting, painting, and basic woodworking—to make tiny furnishings for the dollhouse. It taught me to view the world as a place of possibility, where anything could be adapted for the dollhouse. During that time I spent playing, I also learned how to tell stories, and this turned out to be a skill that shaped my interest in writing.

Decades later, when I finished my fourth novel and was considering what to write next, I thought about how much my old dollhouse charted the course for my creative life and decided to write about it. But the dollhouse was a mess. Peeling and stained wallpaper, broken pieces, decrepit furniture—everything needed help, so as I brought it back to life, I developed ideas for my book’s characters and plot.

The first character we meet is the dollhouse maker, identified only as “the miniaturist.” Right off the bat, though, she lets us in on her underlying goal for her projects. What is that, and what drives her (as revealed in the prologue)?

The miniaturist hides her clients’ secrets in their dollhouses.

Chapter 1 opens in 2024. Introduce us to Tildy Barrows, your main narrator for the contemporary storyline. How would you describe her as a personality?

Tildy’s life has grown very small. She’s a woman who has experienced loss and she’s grown isolated. Her work at the library is her only outlet to a wider world. She’s very controlled, disciplined, and organized. When she discovers the dollhouses and examines their contents closely, the control she tries to keep over her life will be upended.

The Belva Curtis LeFarge Library, aka the Bel, is almost a character itself. Give a brief description of it, please, as Tildy sees it.

I’m so glad you view the library as a character! I could envision this wonderful place so clearly in my imagination and wish it was real! The Bel’s an old Beaux Arts historic library that was built in the 1920s by Belva Curtis LeFarge to serve her Pacific Heights community in San Francisco and it was her home while she was alive, so it has a very intimate feeling and its staff is very committing to preserving the past. Although modern life is trying hard to change the Bel, Tildy is determined to see the Bel remain as it always was. It takes her a while to understand that sometimes we must change to survive.

Early on, Tildy stumbles into a secret room at the Bel and discovers two dollhouses. What should we know about them?

The dollhouses are beautiful artifacts that reflect how their owners once lived. For those who look closely, the dollhouses will also reveal clues about the secret lives of the women who once owned them.

The novel then shifts back in time to 1910, where the other main narrator emerges. Who is Cora Hale, and what takes her to Paris?

Cora Hale is a young orphaned art student, and her past is a bit unclear at the start of the novel, though there are hints that she has arrived in Paris to flee from a past scandal.

I asked you above about the Bel as an institution, but Belva Curtis LeFarge is also a character in the novel—indeed, the connecting thread between past and present. What should we know about her?

Belva is a San Francisco heiress who has married a French aristocrat and she oversees Curtis House, a Parisian boarding house for ambitious American young women who want to study in Paris. After Belva gives Cora Hale a place to live, Cora will use her artistic skills to create a dollhouse for her patron. As the two women collaborate on the dollhouse, a relationship will develop that changes the women’s lives forever.

Cora’s story represents the historical thread of this dual-timeline book, but Tildy’s story, although set in the present day, also contains a historical element. She wants to know the history of her own family—her mother, in particular. Why does she believe the dollhouses will aid her in that quest?

Tildy finds several miniatures in one of the dollhouses that challenge her understanding of her mother’s identity.

And what of you? Do you already have another book in the works?

I’m currently at work on a novel set in 1950s Seattle, which is fun because this is the first time I’ve written about where I live.

Thank you so much for answering my questions!

A native New Englander, Elise Hooper spent several years writing for television and online news outlets before getting an MA and teaching high-school literature and history. Her debut novel, The Other Alcott, was a nominee for the 2017 Washington Book Award. Three more novels—Learning to See, Fast Girls, and Angels of the Pacific—followed, all centered on the lives of extraordinary but overlooked historical women. The Library of Lost Dollhouses is her most recent book. Elise lives in Seattle with her husband and two daughters. Find out more about her and her books at https://www.elisehooper.com.

Photograph of Elise Hooper © Chris Landry Photography. Reproduced with permission.