There are writers who have a memoir you love and then another and then you wish they would just stop already because if you see their stupid books in the new biography section one more time you are going to scream and really? you need to spend another book writing about your addiction to overpriced shoes and your makeup collection? <wipes brow and takes a few deep breaths> Sorry, still a bit riled up over the latest of Annoying Author’s latest “memoir” cluttering up valuable space and wasting library resources. Back to the proper review. I promise.

Then you have authors who write memoirs and you snap them up because a) they are witty b) well written and c) don’t focus on stupid $200+ ballet flats. Also these authors you need to hunt down like, well…your father after a 12 point buck in during deer season. With great caution and expense. Only you don’t get some people going “EEWWWW” and “hunting is WRONG” when you snag your prey. And my dad? He eats what he gets and venison is delicious, so zip it!  Instead when the book hunter find your prey, you bring it home and curl up on Mr Couch (or Mr Bed if Blacklight is awake and ranting about Richard Dawkins and Minecraft and wrestling) and devour it.  Or you zip to the library after cleaning up the kitchen, grab your inter-library loans and head home because you’re tired and just want to collapse.

And even though you should really take a nap because it was one bleep of a workday and you are doing overtime the next day, you crawl into bed with one of your inter-library loan treasures intending to read for a little bit. And then the next thing you know you’re being pulled from a life as a nurse in training during World War II by a voice asking “who is daddy widdle wedhead?” to the fish tank and “hey are you making that pizza tonight?” to your dazed self.

Okay. That might have been a true story from Friday night. (It was). Blacklight did not get his pizza. He has opposable thumbs and can make his own dinner. How dare he summon me from the pages of Monica Dickens’ autobiography An Open Book? But he’s Blacklight and well, that’s what he does. Now what Monica Dickens’ does? Write awesome books.

An Open Book is British author Monica Dickens’ autobiography. Yes, she related to that Dickens but you get the delightful impression that their relationship (she is his great-granddaughter) doesn’t impress her that much. In fact, when she talks about her experiences promoting her books, the relationship between her and Mr Overrated seems like a burden and something she wishes didn’t exist.

I wonder if anyone coming up to her burbling “You know I loathe Mr Overrated to pieces” would have gotten a broad smile from her. Because if I had lived in her heyday, I would have been that person. Trust me. I met Mr Andrew Leman (co-founder of The HP Lovecraft Historical Society and all around awesome guy) and was that burbling dimwit who could barely form proper sentences like “I would like to buy this t-shirt” and “thank you Mr Leman”. So in my twisted little brain, the fact that Monica Dickens seems “meh” over her distant relationship to the overrated one? So very refreshing because so many other authors would be mentioning that connection every three seconds.

In fact, you could read An Open Book for her experiences promoting her books alone. Anyone who has written a book, or worked in book promotions will smile and remember their own best stories. It’s not the laugh-a minute horrors Grace experiences in promoting Hatto & Hatto’s books in Wendy Holden’s Gossip Hound (US)/Fame Fatale (UK) but it’s a universally familiar one to writers. Emma Chisit, indeed. 🙂

Instead of lingering and hovering over a distant yet important family connection, Monica Dickens weaves a tale of enchantment around life at Number 52. She’s the youngest child of three (older brother, slightly older sister) and the odd duckling in a talented and loving extended family. She goes to school and becomes a debutante but is more on the sidelines then in the first tier of things. Other people fall in love, get married and start families. Monica tries her hand at acting and then cooking professionally.

Now Monica is a nice girl from a nice family who can barely cook. She’s taken a course of six lessons. But she talks her way into being a professional cook/servant and spends many months toiling behind stoves and in cold kitchens. And apart from the occasional successful dish, comes a book about her experiences, One Pair of Hands, which becomes a popular seller. She’s not a best seller but she’s a known quality and now establishing herself as a professional writer.

With World War II, our Monica tries her hand at war work as a nurse, inspiring another popular seller, One Pair of Feet, that horrifies the nursing profession. The black mark of One Pair of Feet, doesn’t stop her from writing. Years pass and her busy pen and typewriter churn out books and articles. Along the way, Monica finds love, a husband of her own and adopts two very lucky little girls. There is sadness though. The war kills her older brother, her parents are getting more fragile and she is torn between her new home, America and the call of her childhood home Number 52.

What truly sticks in the mind besides the behind the scenes gossip of One Pair of Hands and One Pair of Feet are two sections that wrench the heart. If Blacklight wasn’t so busy watching Minecraft videos he might have looked over and saw me sniffling and then just barely fighting back tears. I dare you to pick up An Open Book and read chapters 16 and 21 without reaching for the Kleenex.

Chapter 16 is a brief thing, just a handful of pages about Monica trailing along with social worker. There’s a baby found in a room with only a burned leather couch. Another family ignores the fatal illness of an infant with the mother hoping that she’s pregnant again. Just these few pages had me tearing up as much as all three of Jennifer Worth’s excellent memoirs of her time as midwife.

Chapter 21 deals all too briefly in my opinion, with Monica Dickens’ work with The Samaritans. Now if you’re a Red Dwarf junkie, you know that Rimmer’s stint at the Samaritans is used as a joke in the first few series. Who knew that Monica Dickens helped found the American branch of The Samaritans? Without looking at http://www.samaritansusa.org? And this from a woman who beat herself up emotionally for mishandling her first call even though that caller got help.

Is it any wonder reading An Open Book had me abusing using my beloved inter-library loans with a white hot speed? If only it wasn’t Sunday or I would be headed to the East Hartford Public Library RIGHT NOW to brave their vertigo causing fiction section and not have to wait for the inter-library loan system. Or that Monica Dickens is on my list favorite authors. Unlike Annoying Author, I never wanted to slap Monica, or roll my eyes at her. Instead I wanted to sit down for a cup of tea, eat a scone and go pet her horses. Pity more authors can’t inspire that.