Caroline Preston has created a book so unique, so full of surprises and so much fun to read that I’ve borrowed it twice, just to keep looking at it and discovering things I missed the first time around.
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a story and a scrapbook from the 20s, all rolled into one exceptionally pleasing book. I’m nuts about it and believe you will be, too. Open it to any random page, give yourself a few seconds to feast on the very detailed artifacts Preston dug up and dusted off to create Frankie's world, and I guarantee you’ll be smiling.
The text--just a few lines or short paragraphs per page-- is written on an old Corona typewriter and placed among pictures, old advertisements, recipes, seed packets, graduation programs, postcards, valentines, maps, illustrations, ticket stubs, even luncheonette menus,
The scrapbook chronicles Frankie’s life beginning in 1920, the year of her high school graduation. She’s voted the smartest girl in Cornish, New Hampshire, and gets accepted to Vassar. But hard times--and tuition--put Vassar out of reach for the moment. Frankie stays close to home and finds work as a nursing aide to a rich, elderly woman with a handsome nephew. Hmmm.
How she finally gets to Vassar--a few months later--and then onto Greenwich Village and Paris and then back home again will keep you paging through the book nonstop. The story and the scrapbook elements are addicting!
Preston used some of her own memorabilia for the book, but hunted down a lot more on E-bay and in antique stores. There’s some 600 pieces of vintage treasure here, and if you’re like me, you’ll need more than one look to capture it all.
I also recommend the author’s beautiful website:
http://carolinepreston.com/
I’ve become a frequent visitor to read her blog, follow the reviews and track her speaking engagements. I’d love to attend one of her talks and keep wishing for a Pennsylvania event to pop up soon.
While visiting the website, click on the link “How I made The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt.” Preston reveals how her pack-rat and attic-prowling tendencies became the foundation for a career as an archivist and then, 15 years later, a novelist. What an interesting story. What a wonderful book.
The Push From the Book---each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me: I want to look at my own family’s treasure trove of paper and photographic memories and start consolidating and organizing. Next rainy day, I think I’ll be sorting through old photos, postcards and diaries. Wonder if Martha Stewart is free?
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Groovin' to the Sixties
I was a child of the Sixties. Not a hippy-dippy type, more of a Marlo Thomas/That Girl girl. The decade was a joyful collection of uncomplicated childhood, innocence, and then later, coming-of-age fun with junior and senior high school friends. Those years between first and 10th grade were idyllic, and if a book, movie or television show promises to take me back to that time, I’m in. Always.
Which brings me to my latest infatuation--Mad Men, the Emmy award winning series from AMC that transports us to 1960’s ad agency life at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a place where the alcohol flows well before noon and office-couch trysts are customary. And the women? Well, they’re typing. Unless you’re talking about Peggy Olson, the naïve secretary-turned-copywriter who’s gaining a foothold in this mighty world of ad men.
Mad Men airs Sunday nights and each week I wonder. Was life back then on Madison Avenue really this smoke filled? Was it this boozy? Were affairs this routine?
According to a new book called Mad Women, by Jane Maas, a real Peggy Olson-type back in the day, it was. Mad Men gets lots right, according to Maas. Not everything, mind you, but enough.
Maas, a Bucknell grad, gives us a backstage pass to ad agency life and doesn’t skimp on the details--storyboards, focus groups, television shoots, meetings, multi-martini lunches, nine-hour flights to California---all while wearing suits, heels, white gloves and hats. And she serves up enough proof on the subject of extracurricular sex and sexual harassment to acknowledge that Mad Men producers aren’t exaggerating when they recreate scenes of steamy liaisons over lunch.
If you’re like me and relish the thought of revisiting the 60s and 70s, or want to know more about ad agency life or love Mad Men, Mad Women will be worth your time.
The Push From the Book
Each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:As much as I delighted in this book, it also refreshed my memory about what women back then were up against. For starters, no equal pay for equal work. Maas writes that men even got the better work spaces. Offices with windows for males; cubicles for women. If you had children, there were precious few options for child care, no flex-time to attend school functions, no maternity leave. And speaking of pregnant, when you started to show, many women left--as in forever.
So yes, I love the 60s, but it was far from perfect. Women who wanted and needed to work struggled and cleared a path for the rest of us who entered the workforce decades later. Women are still dancing to do it all, but it’s so much better than our mothers had it. I shouldn’t forget that. Ever.
Which brings me to my latest infatuation--Mad Men, the Emmy award winning series from AMC that transports us to 1960’s ad agency life at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a place where the alcohol flows well before noon and office-couch trysts are customary. And the women? Well, they’re typing. Unless you’re talking about Peggy Olson, the naïve secretary-turned-copywriter who’s gaining a foothold in this mighty world of ad men.
Mad Men airs Sunday nights and each week I wonder. Was life back then on Madison Avenue really this smoke filled? Was it this boozy? Were affairs this routine?
According to a new book called Mad Women, by Jane Maas, a real Peggy Olson-type back in the day, it was. Mad Men gets lots right, according to Maas. Not everything, mind you, but enough.
Maas, a Bucknell grad, gives us a backstage pass to ad agency life and doesn’t skimp on the details--storyboards, focus groups, television shoots, meetings, multi-martini lunches, nine-hour flights to California---all while wearing suits, heels, white gloves and hats. And she serves up enough proof on the subject of extracurricular sex and sexual harassment to acknowledge that Mad Men producers aren’t exaggerating when they recreate scenes of steamy liaisons over lunch.
If you’re like me and relish the thought of revisiting the 60s and 70s, or want to know more about ad agency life or love Mad Men, Mad Women will be worth your time.
The Push From the Book
Each book we read leaves its mark and gives you a push: a new way of thinking, a new take on life, new ideas, new goals. Here’s what this book did to me:As much as I delighted in this book, it also refreshed my memory about what women back then were up against. For starters, no equal pay for equal work. Maas writes that men even got the better work spaces. Offices with windows for males; cubicles for women. If you had children, there were precious few options for child care, no flex-time to attend school functions, no maternity leave. And speaking of pregnant, when you started to show, many women left--as in forever.
So yes, I love the 60s, but it was far from perfect. Women who wanted and needed to work struggled and cleared a path for the rest of us who entered the workforce decades later. Women are still dancing to do it all, but it’s so much better than our mothers had it. I shouldn’t forget that. Ever.
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