Thursday, August 14, 2008

121 - The Red Leather Diary; Lily Koppel


As a teenager (1929 - 1934), Florence Wolfson kept a diary. She began writing (4) lines a day on her fourteenth birthday, and for (5) years she did not miss a single day. For more than a century, the red leather diary sat in a trunk, its worn cover crumbling. The diary was rescued from a dumpster on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, by a young writer, Lily Koppel from the NY Times. The discarded diary brings to life the glamorous, forgotten world of an extraordinary young woman of privilege. A woman of tremendous energy, imagination and intelligence. She was sexually adventurous, loving both men and women.

The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal was structured with the introduction and ending written in the author's voice, where she explains finding the diary and then the writer, Florence Wolfson, in 2006. Florence Wolfson is still living and is now 93 years old. The middle section is meat of the book which contains the entries in italics, and also background and photos of Florence and friends.

I loved the first half of the book, however, I soon found I could no longer relate to the life of Florence, and the book lost it's punch with me.

Rating - 4/5 - Completed - 8/13/08

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