84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

I’d been interested in watching the film adaptation of 84 Charing Cross Road ever since I heard of its charming, feel-good premise. I owe it to Angie over at Angieville for actually getting me to watch it. I had no idea it was a true story – the best seem too good to be true – let alone based on a memoir of the same name. So naturally I had to read the book after enjoying the sweet story on film.

It’s 1949 and Helene Hanff is a struggling free-lance writer living in New York and Frank Doel is a used book dealer in London. Helene also happens to be an avid book collector with an eccentric taste for rare, out-of-print and first editions of classic literature. Since such books are impossible to find and if found, impossible to afford in the U.S., Helene searches for alternatives and comes across the London bookseller Marks & Co. for whom Frank Doel works. Her first letter requesting cheap and clean secondhand copies is teeming with her quirky, brazen and witty personality and will be only one of many that will form a cultural and geographical-bridging friendship between she and Marks and Co. spanning two decades.

While this short collection of letters may not lack in brevity it more than compensates in substance. In fact 84, Charing Cross Road is very difficult to describe in words, such a singular gem it is in it’s portrayal of a unlikely, cross-cultural friendship in a different day and time. It’s at times shocking yet refreshing how much Helene lays herself open and bear from the beginning – the stereotypical American lack of reserve. On the other hand Frank is so professional and tightly strung (at least at first) that he also represents the quintessential British overabundance of it. As you can imagine this makes for a plethora of snappy retorts from Helene in which she bluntly and knowingly teases Frank with her emotional honesty. Take this letter for instance:

14 East 95th St
March 25, 1950

Frank Doel, what are you DOING over there, you are not doing ANYthing, you are just sitting AROUND.

Where is Leigh Hunt? Where is Oxford verse? Where is the Vulgate and dear goofy John Henry, I thought they’d be such nice uplifting reading for Lent and NOTHING do you send me.

you leave me sitting here writing long margin notes in library books that don’t belong to me, some day they’ll find out i did it and take my library card away.

I have made arrangements with the Easter bunny to bring you an Egg, he will get over there and find you have died of Inertia.

I require a book of love poems with spring coming on. No Keats or Shelley, send me poets who can make love without slobbering – Wyatt or Jonson or somebody, use your own judgment. Just a nice book preferably small enough to stick in a slacks pocket and take to Central Park.

Well, don’t just sit there! Go find it! i swear i dont know how that shop keeps going.

I get the feeling that sharp-witted and heartfelt Helene is just one of those people it would’ve been a privilege to know. In time Helene is not only sending in payments for her books but packages of food for the entire office as well as exchanging personal photos and news. Though heartbreakingly Frank and Helene never get to meet, it’s clear how dear they are to one another and I don’t think it’s possible that your heart cannot be warmed, their correspondence is such a pure delight to read.