The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures - Softcover

Preston, Caroline

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061966916 ISBN 13: 9780061966910

Publisher: Ecco, 2017

Synopsis

“The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a literary bottle rocket—loaded with whimsy, pizzazz, and heart.”
—Adriana Trigiani

“Is it possible that I have just read/experienced/devoured the most delightful book ever published? Do not argue with me: There is magic here and genius.”
—Elinor Lipman

“A ripping yarn of emancipated girlish adventure.”
—Audrey Niffenegger

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt is a visually stunning, totally unique, full-color novel in the form of a scrapbook, set in the burgeoning bohemian culture of the 1920s and featuring an endearing, unforgettable heroine. Caroline Preston, author of the New York Times Notable Book Jackie by Josie, uses a kaleidoscopic array of vintage memorabilia—postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus and more—to tell the tale of spirited and ambitious Frankie’s remarkable odyssey from Vassar to Greenwich Village to Paris, in a manner that will delight crafters, historical fiction fans, and anyone who loves a good coming-of-age story ingeniously told.

About this title

From the Back Cover

For her graduation from high school in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father’s old Corona typewriter. Despite Frankie’s dreams of becoming a writer, she must forgo a college scholarship to help her widowed mother. But when a mysterious Captain James sweeps her off her feet, her mother finds a way to protect Frankie from the less-than-noble intentions of her unsuitable beau.

Through a kaleidoscopic array of vintage postcards, letters, magazine ads, ticket stubs, catalog pages, fabric swatches, candy wrappers, fashion spreads, menus, and more, we meet and follow Frankie on her journey in search of success and love. Once at Vassar, Frankie crosses paths with intellectuals and writers, among them “Vincent” (alumna Edna St. Vincent Millay), who encourages Frankie to move to Greenwich Village and pursue her writing. When heartbreak finds her in New York, she sets off for Paris aboard the S.S. Mauritania, where she keeps company with two exiled Russian princes and a “spinster adventuress” who is paying her way across the Atlantic with her unused trousseau. In Paris, Frankie takes a garret apartment above Shakespeare & Company, the hub of expat life, only to have a certain ne’er-do-well captain from her past reappear. But when a family crisis compels Frankie to return to her small New England hometown, she finds exactly what she had been looking for all along.

Author of the New York Times Notable Book Jackie by Josie, Caroline Preston pulls from her extraordinary collection of vintage ephemera to create the first-ever scrapbook novel, transporting us back to the vibrant, burgeoning bohemian culture of the 1920s and introducing us to an unforgettable heroine, the spirited, ambitious, and lovely Frankie Pratt.

About the Author

Caroline Preston is the author of three previous novels, Jackie by Josie (a New York Times Notable Book), Lucy Crocker 2.0, and Gatsby's Girl, and one scrapbook novel, The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt. She has collected antique scrapbooks since she was in high school, and has worked as an archivist at the Peabody/ Essex Museum and Harvard University. She and her husband, the writer Christopher Tilghman, live in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Ecco
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0061966916
• ISBN 13: 9780061966910
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 240