Harry put his hand on the door handle and pushed it open.
He’d forgotten how beautiful it was, this magnificent column of space, soaring upward to the glass dome. Van Alan had shown him the drawings once, while it was all under construction, and the reality was even more breathtaking than he had imagined. The moonlight streamed downward, filling the air with silver, just enough light to see the steps and descend, foot by foot, to the third floor.
The mural was still there, as fresh as the day he had painted it, and smelling familiarly of that peculiar mixture of oil and plaster. He drew a sigh of relief, as if he’d just found proof that he was still alive. For some time he stood there, contemplating the lines, admiring one figure and criticizing another: the use of color, the clever way he’d refracted the light on the dragon’s scales, creating a sense of otherworldly luminescence—well, that was a nice touch, at least. His signature, at the bottom: H. Pratt. God, what a boy he’d been, so proud of this pretty thing he’d created.
The light began to fade as the moon moved overhead. Harry ran his finger over Saint George, eternally poised on the brink of murder, and wondered if, one day, his own child would stand here and see what his father had once created. The man his father once was. And he would wonder, wouldn’t he, what path had led Harry Pratt from this idealistic dreamworld on Sixty-ninth Street to Cuba, and Maria, and a life he had never expected to live.
After a while, he turned and went back up the stairs, retracing his path to the seventh floor and the room that had lain forgotten for a year, steeping in dust and memories. He collected his remaining paints, his smock, a couple of old brushes that would have to do.
And he went back downstairs and started to work.
Questions for Discussion
1. The Forgotten Room has three different stories and three different main characters woven together into one big story, all taking place at the same mansion. Did you like or empathize more with one particular story line or protagonist?
2. The Forgotten Room is deliberately written as a puzzle—each chapter and character adds another piece to solving the puzzle. At what point did you figure out the truth of what really happened in each story? When did you start to realize the connections between Olive, Lucy, and Kate?
3. Social class differences are explored in all three story lines. For the characters, do you think that the differences in social class are more important or less so than the differences caused by wealth and education?
4. Even though none of the women is an artist, art is one of the important elements that links all three stories and the characters. What kind of role does art play in your life?
5. As the protagonist who sets everything in motion, Olive’s decision to leave Harry and marry Hans has repercussions for several characters in the generations that follow. Do you think Olive made a mistake in leaving or that she should have trusted Harry? What choice would you have made?
6. The history of the Pratt mansion has been fictionalized but is based on a real mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Have you ever visited a house with the kind of history the Pratt mansion has or imagined the type of people who lived and worked in such a place?
7. The title refers to the attic room, which has a secret compartment built into the fireplace. Do you have a special place in your home where you keep or hide items?
8. The complicated relationship between mothers and daughters is a major aspect of the novel, with three generations of women who felt loved but estranged from their mothers. Why do you think that none of them seemed to have been close to her mother? Why do you think neither Olive nor Lucy ever just tell their daughters the truth?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Karen White is the New York Times bestselling author of The Sound of Glass, A Long Time Gone, and The Time Between, among other novels.
Beatriz Williams is the New York Times bestselling author of Tiny Little Thing, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and Overseas.
Lauren Willig is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lure of the Moonflower, That Summer, and The Other Daughter, among other novels.