Important Artifacts

Currently, my literary obsession is with Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry by Leann Shapton.
Shapton charts the (fictional) rise and fall of a relationship through an auction house listing of 325 items given or collected during the four years the characters Lenora and Harold dated. Books, love letters, photos, stolen salt and pepper shakers from dates, unwanted gifts from the other’s mother, mix tapes and phone bills, you name it, it lends itself to the story. It’s quite refreshing to read the old, inevitably doomed love story in a new structure that has you turning the page back to see how pieces fit. I mean, really, when’s the last time you interacted with a book like that? Harold’s Brooklyn address is revealed, but alas! He is a Prospect Heights resident (yes, I’m so into the story that I google mapped an address). I’m not really doing this book justice but I’m going to reread and return it to the library, so someone should get on it asap.
Interestingly enough, Shapton’s website displays the page that is also in the self portrait I took this weekend.

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