Dan's Papers - August 15, 2008 - Two Women, Two Stories, One Red Leather Diary

On her way to work one morning, 23-year-old New York Times journalist Lily Koppel noticed a dumpster filled with debris that included ornate, vintage ocean steamer trunks. Climbing up into the dumpster, Koppel found amazing clothing of yesteryear and an old red leather diary dated from 1929 through 1935. Unaware of what she actually found, Koppel explored the contents of some of the other trunks, and went to work.

Over time, the saga of The Red Leather Diary burst into perhaps the most important event of Koppel's life. She began to read the beautiful prose, meticulously written by hand by a 14-year-old girl, Florence Wolfson. As a shocking twist, Koppel learned that, in 1929, Wolfson lived in the same building that Koppel was living in some 75 years later. Wolfson was a girl on the verge of womanhood in a strangely modern way, although it was an older time. The diary covers about five years, without missing a day, and then stops abruptly. Reading the details and prose, Koppel develops an unquenchable thirst to find out as much about Florence Wolfson as possible, using all the tools a 21st-century Times journalist has at her disposal - along with some luck, unusual events and instinct. Koppel's passionate search goes on until Wolfson is located, alive, living in affluent Westport, Connecticut. The handwritten little red leather diary is reunited with the owner who made the daily entries. The emotions, questions, power of dreams and aspirations of the soul, heart and mind of a woman coming of age can then be re-examined by the very woman who experienced them 75 years earlier. Both Koppel and Wolfson relive what Wolfson thought about at the time, and juxtapose it against what actually happened over the course of her long, wonderful lifetime.

The Chicago-raised Lily Koppel will bring the magic she uncovered to retell this story at a book signing at St. Ann's Church as part of the Bridgehampton Library's "Fridays at Five" series on August 22. (The reading is $15 and open to the public.) In a detailed narrative Koppel, a NYU graduate who spent a year at Oxford in England, will again weave through the language of a young woman with eyes wide open. With a voice that is in turn both measured and mesmerizing, Koppel will relive her own moments of discovery that changed her life, and recount the actions she took to bring this artifact back to life.

Having heard Koppel speak in East Hampton, I was not truly prepared for the drama and historical significance of the work. From the first lines that she read from the book I was hooked into two truly fantastic stories. The significance of two women - two authors as it were - coming of age 75 years apart, in two different worlds yet in the same building, is a provocative starting place. Koppel and Wolfson have appeared on "Good Morning America," "Today" and other popular shows. Reviews of the book, now in its third hardcover printing, have been stellar. The New York Times called it "lovable." Hearing Koppel tell of the moments when she travels to Westport and first speaks with Wolfson is powerful. At the Bridgehampton Library, the public will be able to experience what happens when chance, curiosity, determination and inspiration combine to create from words written in the past in private into a riveting, relevant book for today. The fairy tale aspects of this serendipitous adventure coupled with the glamour of the age in a time and a life are quite compelling, very unusual and not to be missed. For more information about her reading and signing on August 22, call 631-537-0015.