'We seek the absolute everywhere, and only ever find things' – Novalis
Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry doesn't look much like fiction at first glance. I actually came across this book when it first came out last year in the London Review Bookshop, but I didn't realise what it was. In Edinburgh I came across it again in the literary festival bookshop, and spent a little more time flipping through it. The book simply consists of a catalogue of ephemera (books, notes, cds, photographs, items of clothing – all those little things) belonging to a couple, Harold and Lenore, that have been put up for auction. The lots are illustrated, and each entry is accompanied by a brief factual description, and a price. And as I started to look at the entries more closely it suddenly hit me – there is no Harold, there is no Lenore. Every single thing in this book is made up.
And so … you read it like a novel. Each entry tells its part in the story, from photographs of the party where they first met, and a napkin on which Harold made a note of Lenore's email address, to books they sent each other, notes and gifts. Things go well. Then they don't go so well. Their relationship has its ups and downs, and the reader gets to piece it all together. I've never read anything like it, and I absolutely loved it. Can you read it too, and then we could compare notes?
Do things work out in the end between Harold and Lenore? Well, maybe, maybe not. (Actually I suppose the very fact that all their possessions are being auctioned off suggests a big 'not' from the outset.) It's the most wonderfully oblique piece of work. On second reading I took note of the date of the postcard from Harold that introduces the whole thing. The first time I had taken it to be from the beginning of his relationship with Lenore. But I realised that it was actually dated from two years after the last entry in the book – and so was a glimpse into a possible future.
What can I say. I loved it. Here it is on Amazon.
The book is by Leanne Shapton, whose illustration work I had come across before and loved. And now I think she's a complete genius, simple as that. I read that she was inspired by the auction catalogue of Truman Capote's personal effects – this one, maybe.
