Book Review: How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life

This is a review of How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, a book written by Mameve Medwed, published by William Morrow (258 pages, $24.95, ISBN 0060831197).

You can't help but wonder what happens to those people who get lucky on "Antiques Roadshow" the minute they leave the convention center with arms wrapped protectively around their authenticated treasures. Writer Mameve Medwed channels her curiosity of this phenomenon of suddenly bestowed value into a cleverly funny and touching novel titled How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life.

The reference to the famous poetess arises when Abigail Randolph, a dealer in mostly unexceptional collectibles, is informed that her quaintly decorated chamber pot is indeed exceptional, as it once belonged to Ms. Browning. It becomes her chamber-jack-pot, so to speak. Novelist Medwed maps a humorous trial as this object of desire moves through the stages of legitimacy from antique mall obscurity, to center stage on "Roadshow," to lawyer's office vault, to its ultimate fate. The appraisal changes everyone's sense of worth and just about everybody thinks they are entitled to a piece of it. A childhood friend, a newspaper feature writer, an ex-lover all emerge with various ideas about sinking their hooks into this treasure. Even Abigail loses her equilibrium and begins to attribute literary provenance to humble household items. She sees imaginary and absurd diamonds in the rough, such as Willa Cather's corn sheller. When you are told you possess Elizabeth Barrett Browning's chamber pot, anything is possible.

This genuinely funny novel contains moments of acute familiarity for anyone who has ever rambled around an antique mall, sifted through a swap meet or braked for a garage sale. The entire concept of turning trash into treasure is ripe for ribbing. Who doesn't dream of spying a rare trinket in a heap of dross? We are convinced that the Mickey Mantle rookie card, the William Faulkner first edition, the Pablo Picasso sketch are just waiting to be rescued from the rubbish bin. Of course not everyone has "the eye." Even protagonist Abigail, a buyer and seller of the old and unusual by profession, has to rely upon the keener senses of others. When she scores a second jackpot, it is quite by accident.

How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life is populated by characters true in definition and it follows that their motivations are real. It is an additional treat that their dialogue is original and rings authentically to the ear. Medwed's storytelling is so natural and amusing that is it possible to miss her deeper analysis of the relationship between people and their things. Abigail defends the act of collecting when she says, "But people exist in their objects; they inhabit the walls of their rooms. Old things bear traces of lives lived; possessions provoke cherished memories."

Through Abigail, Medwed equates a well used object to a life well lived. "I think of antiques, objects of desire, how the hairline crack in an old vase, the foxing in an old print, the clouded glass of an old decanter mark the passage of time, commemorate the history of people's lives. This has age, one of my colleagues might boast to a customer, extolling its greater value over the shiny and pristine. How much easier it is to live with flaws than perfection. How much more comfortable. Scars and nicks … can have value in human terms, too, not just in china, glass, silver, old manuscripts. Flaws can reveal growth, authenticity. Can show that two people have lived and learned."