A review by debz57a52
Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leanne Shapton

4.0

This was such a weird book, but I really loved it.  The description from the publisher is pretty spot-on: this is an auction catalog about all the little memorabilia that two fictional characters, Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, acquired during their love affair.  It starts innocently enough with photos and napkins with handwriting and some articles of clothing, but then the artifacts expand to include books and music and paintings and correspondence, more clothes and shoes and hats, wrappers and cards and figures, even furniture and hotel keys and pressed flowers.  Each photo of an item in the catalog (and a few items that are not illustrated, but described as one of the lots) has a factual description and then usually a connection to Lenore, Harold, or their family or friends.  As I flipped through the pages, I could see their love and their problems, the way both characters' friends and family made space for the other, the little inside jokes and romantic rituals they developed, and even the up and down of their relationship as they fought and got back together.  My husband and I have been together for over 30 years, but this book made me think what artifacts we would have in our auction catalog after only a few years together... and how that would be so different now.  Like The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt and Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, we are looking at how a person can tell a story in non-traditional ways, but with those small moments and items that we all have in our lives.