The War Bride's Scrapbook

The War Bride's Scrapbook

Caroline Preston

When I read this graphic novel a couple weeks ago it was all I could do to stop myself from waving it in everyone's face and telling them to read it. 

The author, Caroline Preston, is an American artist who has had a passion for collectable scrapbook items since her teenage years. With an education in history and a serious interest in manuscripts and ephemera, she has worked as an archivist at the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Peabody/Essex Museum and Harvard's Houghton Library.

In addition, she has won awards for her work in preserving and showing her collections, in the process, creating scrapbooks for publication. The War Bride's Scrapbook is her second such scrapbook, the first being The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt, which my local library sadly doesn't have. Yet. Because I intend to recommend that they purchase it asap.

With The War Bride's Scrapbook, author Caroline Preston has created a story of a fictional couple who, after an extremely short courtship, married shortly before the groom left for the action of the Second World War. The groom, Perry Weld, was a good-looking, intelligent and thoughtful person with aspirations of going to architecture school upon his return from the war. Lila, a young woman fascinated by "skyscrapers, chrome chairs and cubist women" found any plans she might have had derailed by the war effort. 

The book consists mostly of the correspondence between Lila and Perry, interlaced with photos of relevant scrapbook items - photos, postcards, V-Mail, movie flyers, menus, hotel bills, buttons, food stamps, labels off cans and packages and so on. Life for Lila at home in the US is never dull and Perry spends his war days as a combat engineer building bridges. Perry returns from the war and the story has a bit of a surprise ending. The scrapbook concludes.

The fictional scrapbook was tucked away and then found many years afterwards by Lila's daughter who has been cleaning out her mother's house. Preston's book ends with an interview of Lila by her daughter as part of a college assignment. 

I so want to tell you how it all turned out! But I won't. You just have to read it yourself. 

In the meantime, check out Caroline Preston's website where she has posted photos of many of her collectables.