Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry

by Leanne Shapton

Book Overview

A love story told in the form of an auction catalog.

Auction catalogs can tell you a lot about a person -- their passions and vanities, peccadilloes and aesthetics; their flush years and lean. Think of the collections of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Truman Capote, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

In Leanne Shapton's marvelously inventive and invented auction catalog, the 325 lots up for auction are what remain from the relationship...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374175306
• ISBN13: 9780374175306
• Release Date: February 2009
• Publisher: Sarah Crichton Books
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 7.1" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Creative Way To Look At Relationships

Important Artifacts... is quite possibly one of the most creatively done books I've ever read. Shown though an auction catalog, the book tells a story of two lovers (Doolan and Morris) through notes, gifts, books, clothes, and more all being auctioned off due to the fact that the relationship has ended. That's right - the story is told through pictures and explanations of each auctioned item. Starting with the first time they met, each lot contains a memento from their four year relationship (2002-2006). From the invitation to a Halloween party where they mutually attended (dressed as Harry Houdini and Lizzie Borden) to dried flowers kept by both parties, the story of their love emerges. The items progress as the relationship does - from love notes hidden between pages of old paperbacks to angry e-mails sent from across the sea. The book shows what's left behind after a relationship ends. Leanne Shapton, the art director for the New York Times Op-ed page, excellently puts together this story. In a fantastic interview with the New York Times, she states: "It's sort of about how reliant we are on our things to define us," Ms. Shapton said, acknowledging that there is a strain of what she described as somewhat "suffocating discernment" running through the protagonists' lives. "But I wanted to balance that with a pretty genuine love of very private meaning," she said, adding that most of the things put up for sale are "those kinds of things that mean everything to the person who owned them and nothing to anyone else." The book ends with the breakup, of course, but starts with hope. As a preface to the catalog, a recent postcard from Hal states that he and his current girlfriend broke up. That he'd like to see Lenore once again. It leaves the book open for another shot at love, or, another auction. Important Artifacts... is a brilliantly done quick read that shows the transgression of a relationship. And how little artifacts can really tell a lot about a person or a time period.

Mesmerizing, brilliant, original.

I looooved this book. Imagining the relationship between these two people, and their two characters, using the possessions and momentos as the only clues -- I couldn't put it down.

A New Kind of Love Story

Meet Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris. Lenore, aka Buttertart, writes a food column for the New York Times, loves striped clothing, and throws things when she's mad. Harold, or Hal, is a professional photographer with a fear of commitment, a crusty English mother, and a collection of hotel keycards. The story of their quirky, tempestuous, and ultimately doomed relationship is skillfully told through a series of auction catalog entries in //Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry//, the innovative new book by Leanne Sharpton. An illustrator and writer, Sharpton uses visual and written elements in concert to reveal the particulars of a relationship. For instance, a picture of a mix CD is accompanied by a flirty track list, or a broken mug by a note of apology. Though devoid of traditional narrative, these emotional artifacts and simple descriptions allow the reader to construct the story and become emotionally invested after only a few pages. Sharpton creates a delicate balance between pictures and words, between information and omission, allowing readers to fill in the blanks. The result is a love story both specific and universal. Reviewed by Katie Capello

Material culture anthropology as romance

I love this so much. Yes, it is a novel written in the form of an auction catalog. She did something so amazing here, and did it so exquisitely well. It might seem like a gimmick, but it is so well done, it's past gimmick and into art. It's material culture as all, it's the objects of life showing the feelings, it's the culmination of our consumer society that a love story, with tingles and kisses and tears can be told, perfectly, through a collection of toast racks and pajamas and that the debris of life can tell a story as haunting as a traditional narrative. Hats off to Leanne Shapton for this one. I loved it so much that I ordered my own copy, which I lent to a friend. Today she texted me and said "That may be my favorite book." I replied and said "Oh that is so great that you liked it!" She replied and said "I read it twice." That says it all, I think.

Sweet, nostalgic and real

Much has been made of how original and unusual the format of this book is--an auction catalog, selling off the ephemera of a failed relationship--and that's true, but it's also deliciously fun to read and a great love story. The particulars, such as 10 postcards sent by Hal to Lenore during an early business trip, one to "my gray-eyed princess" one reading "Pissing rain here, work boring, missing you and thinking of your face all the time/ all the time /all the time..." feel universal, and will be sort of heartbreaking to anyone familiar with early-stage besotment. About halfway through, I found myself starting to feel sad and worried that they're going to break up (you know it's coming) and wishing that they could just work it out. And not to give anything away, but the breakup is just as caddish and dirty and over-articulated as breakups are in real life. Leanne Shapton has proven herself to be brilliant with the telling, hilarious details of relationships (her last book entitled "Was she pretty?" for the question she asks about a boyfriend's ex-girlfriend) and the items in the catalog (the silver-plated cup the couple kept their toothbrushes in, Valentines Day menus, a collection of hotel key cards) are often as poignant as the words. I loved this book!