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Summary
Summary
When a New York City vintage clothing shop owner's recent purchases contain a hidden journal from 1907, her entire life will be turned upside down in this "insightful, charming, and wholly entertaining novel" (Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner ).
Amanda Rosenbloom, proprietor of Astor Place Vintage, thinks she'son just another call to appraise and possibly purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. But after discovering a journal sewn into a fur muff, Amanda gets much more than she anticipated. The pages of the journal reveal the life of Olive Westcott, a young woman who had moved to Manhattan in 1907. Olive was set on pursuing a career as a department store buyer in an era when Victorian ideas, limiting a woman's sphere to marriage and motherhood, were only beginning to give way to modern ways of thinking. As Amanda reads the journal, her life begins to unravel until she can no longer ignore this voice from the past. Despite being separated by one hundred years, Amanda finds she's connected to Olive in ways neither could ever have imagined.
Author Notes
Stephanie Lehmann received her BA at UC Berkeley and a MA in English from New York University. She has taught novel writing at Mediabistro and online at Salon.com, where her essays have been published. She currently lives in New York City. Visit her online at StephanieLehmann.com and AstorPlaceVintage.com.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Lehmann's enchanting fifth novel (after You Could Do Better) tells the stories of two New York women a century apart, interweaving their lives through playful synchronicity and hints of the supernatural. The present-day timeline involves Amanda Rosenbloom, who owns the eponymous Astor Place Vintage clothing store and has a strong attachment to the past. She mourns the spread of modern buildings in the East Village, where the store is located, and can't let go of her married lover Jeff, a man she's known since high school. While going through some consigned wares, Amanda discovers the 1907 diary of Olive Westcott, an upper-class woman who dreamed of becoming a department store buyer. The story switches to the past, with Olive, after her father's death, facing widespread prejudices against women working and supporting themselves economically. Amanda feels an increasing connection to Olive and meets a possible descendant of the diarist,, in the process gaining the strength to assert her own emotional independence. Lehmann does a seamless job of moving between the past and present and gives a definite sense of place to the story's two periods, with rich descriptions of city life and architecture. First-class storytelling with an enticing dose of New York City history. Agent: Stephanie Kip Rostan, Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The past meets the present in Lehmann's work of feminist literary fiction. In 2007, 39-year-old Amanda indulges her interest in history by running a vintage clothing business in New York City. She is contacted by Jane Kelly, who, at 98, is getting rid of a lifetime's accumulation of stuff, selling whatever she can for whatever she can get. Amanda takes an old trunk full of clothing on consignment and, while going through the items, finds a journal, started in 1907 by a woman named Olive, sewn inside a muff. These two women are separated by a century but have a lot in common. Olive is rebelling against the 19th-century concept of a woman's "place" in society, and Amanda feels herself caught between two historic eras. Olive's mother died in childbirth, and she was raised by an upper-class, loving but conservative father. His fortune was lost in the stock market, and when he died, she became poor. The author presents compelling, often shocking historical details about the treatment of working women in the early years of the century. Meanwhile, Amanda, in contemporary Manhattan, is considering extricating herself from an affair with a man she dearly loves. Along the way, she visits a hypnotist. The tape she receives after her session introduces questions that bring her closer to Olive. The author combines an impressive knowledge of history, sociology and psychology to create an intellectually and emotionally rewarding story.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
During a routine buying appointment at a private apartment, Amanda, the owner of a New York City vintage shop, finds a long-forgotten journal written in 1907 and sewn tightly into a muff. When she started the diary, Olive Wescott was a young woman who had just moved to New York City and was determined to have a career in retail. Back in 2007, Amanda soon finds out the future of her vintage store is more uncertain than she realized. The journal that she can't stop reading and the connection it provides to a voice from the past could hold the key to her salvation. Even more remarkably, as past and present intertwine, Amanda may be able to help Olive. Verdict Incorporating historical photographs and details, Lehmann's (The Art of Undressing; You Could Do Better) well-written fifth novel vividly captures the atmosphere of early 20th-century Manhattan and seamlessly weaves the past with the present. Readers who like their women's fiction to combine elements of history and fashion (e.g., Isabel Wolff's A Vintage Affair and Kate Alcott's The Dressmaker) will delight in this appealing novel.-Karen Core, Detroit P.L. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
