I don’t want to give away the plot — or even hint at. Suffice that Caroline Preston’s engaging new novel, The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt (Ecco/HarperCollins) is not your usual illustrated book, nor is it a graphic novel per se. This hybrid is a cross between a narrative scrapbook and ephemera repository. Frankie Pratt is a 1920s college girl who moves to Greenwich Village to pursue a career as writer. Her story is told through snippets of text, typed on her father’s old Corona (not the beer) and pasted into a arcana-filled scrapbook, which contains clippings from fashion magazines, bottle caps, cigarette labels, playing cards and a oodles more junk.
For the ephermalist, like me, this is a dream book. Each spread is another artifactual surprise. And the amazing thing, it holds together — with more than Scotch Tape and Elmer’s Glue. Read more here.