The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures

For her high school graduation in 1920, Frankie Pratt receives a scrapbook and her father’s old Corona typewriter. Frankie dreams of becoming a writer but must forgo a scholarship to Vassar to help her widowed mother. But when a mysterious Captain James sweeps her off her feet, her mother finds a way to protect Frankie from the less-than-noble intentions of her unsuitable beau and to give her the college education she truly deserves.

In a stunning spread of vintage mementos-from postcards to magazine clippings, ticket stubs, photographs, menus and telegrams-Frankie artistically narrates her journey in search of success and love. At Vassar, she crosses paths with intellectuals and writers who encourage her to move to Greenwich Village and pursue her passion. When heartbreak finds her in New York, she sets off for Paris aboard the S.S. Mauritania, where she keeps company with two exiled Russian princes and a spinster adventuress. And in Paris, Frankie takes a garret apartment above Shakespeare & Company, the hub of expat life, only to have a certain ne'er-do-well from her past reappear. But when a family crisis compels Frankie to return to her small New England hometown, she’s startled to find exactly what she had been looking for all along.