Category: Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff: Underfoot in Show Business

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

For every big star or even middling star there’s hundreds of people clinging to a slight handhold in show business. Underfoot in Show Business is the story of one of the faceless ones, a mousy little playwright from Philadelphia named Helene Hanff. Now if you’re a certain kind of reader (the spouse: “Angophile NERD! Like you!” Me: death stare from Mr Couch), Helene Hanff is the author of the charming 84, Charing Cross Road.

But between letters to Marks & Co., Helene lived in hall bedrooms and tiny studio apartments, writing plays that lurked in the depths of agents Dead Files, working as an outside studio reader and writing television scripts never quite living up to her initial Big Break.

And what was that pre-84, Charing Cross Road Big Break? A very young Helene Hanff entered the Bureau of New Plays contests. The prize? Two $1,500 fellowships and the guiding hand of the Theatre Guild. And at a stroke of fate, Helene went from passionate theater goer to being a member of the theater itself along the way collecting her lifelong friend/actress Maxine and the seeds of 84, Charing Cross Road.

Even though she never becomes a wild success like the previous fellowship winners Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller, she manages to secure a foothold and never gives up her dreams of becoming a playwright.

This book isn’t targeted to readers like my spouse or brother. Trust me there are plenty of books out there for the pair of them. It’s a book for the theater geeks, the early television geeks and the Helene Hanff fanboys/fangirls. It is a charming look at the last great days of the theater and movies before television took over. If you’re that certain type of reader, then hunt down Underfoot in Show Business. The inter-library loan (my book budget is very modest) is worth it.

Apple of My Eye

~ Wendy-Marie ~ 2 Comments

What happens when a person whose spent their entire adult life in New York City gets tapped to write a tourist guide to New York City? If you’re Helene Hanff you enlist one of your friends and take in all the sights that familiar to school children everywhere for the very first time. It might seem shocking that Helene’s never been to the Statute of Liberty but don’t judge too harshly. For example, when Blacklight and I lived in Expensive Acres I drove by certain museums every day on my way to work and it never occurred to me to visit them. Cut Helene some slack okay? It’s not like she had children and got dragged along on their school trips.

So over a span of a few months Helene and her trusty side-kick/friend Patsy explore almost all New York has to offer the tourist and native alike. Well except for the Metropolitan Museum proper, Helene still hasn’t forgiven them for grabbing part of Central Park during their 1970s expansion. It might inspire the reader to hit some of the sights on their next trip to the Big Apple. But Apple of My Eye is also a love letter and time capsule to a lost New York. All those Chock Full o’ Nuts have been replaced by Starbucks. And good luck finding a place to smoke.

 

Helene Hanff: Q’s Legacy

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If someone held me down and demanded I tell them exactly who changed my literary life I’d have to reply “Nancy Drew”. Seriously. Everyone’s favorite Titian haired girl detective with a blue roadster set me on a path that mumblemublethirtysomethingmumblemumble years later has me blissful;y curling up on Mr Couch and shooting death glares at Blacklight who innocently rambles through the living room still not understanding that after almost six years of wedded bliss Gwen + book=GO AWAY LEAVE ‘LONE.

For others it might be Spiderman (Blacklight). Or Nero Wolfe (the late Mater). For Helene (84, Charing Cross Road) Hanff her key to the literary world was the British scholar Q, otherwise known as Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. It was the Depression and Helene wanted an education more than anything else. And in the depths of the library, she found her first book of Q’s lectures and never looked back. Moving from cheap hotel rooms, one room hovels to a brand new studio apartment, the Q lectures and a host of literary classics painstaking acquired from a London secondhand bookshop followed her.

Then in 1970, a collection of the letters between Helene and her unseen friends at the London bookshop was published. And the cult of 84,  Charing Cross Road began. Another book based on her adventures in England in the 84,  Charing Cross Road fever came out. All this because of book a young and knowledge starved young women picked out of the library stacks.

Without Q there was no need to read all the works he reference, no need to turn to a tiny London secondhand bookshop for the things she just couldn’t afford or find in New York City, no letters to the unseen FPD, no 84, Charing Cross Road. And thanks to the 84, Charing Cross Road cult, a visit to watch the filming of the BBC adaptation gives Helene the chance to visit Q’s actual stomping grounds. And even later, the London stage adaptation gives Helene the chance to be the toast of the London theater world. Not too shabby for a little girl from Philadelphia, right?

Q’s Legacy is a book that is best read if you’ve already read 84, Charing Cross Road or seen the television play. If you’ve haven’t read 84, Charing Cross Road then you’ll still get caught up in Helene’s shock and joy as her little book succeeds and her second round of London adventures. Best to read 84, Charing Cross Road and The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street first. Then sit back and enjoy Q’s Legacy and try to resist the urge to roam the stacks of your library and local used and rare bookstore.

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street

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Major surgery be damned. Nothing and I mean NOTHING (okay maybe an attack of nerves) is keeping Helene Hanff from her longed for trip to England. Sure little things like extensive dental work, a spanking new apartment of her own and lack of money might have kept her dreams from coming true over twenty years but this time it was Thundercats are go. Bolstered by her slight but cult classic book 84, Charing Cross Road, Helene Hanff was going to England. The England of her dreams. And for that brief trip she was the Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, fans and unseen friends smoothing her way and showing her every courtsey and nook and cranny of London. Our Helene, accustomed to writing in her alcove and visiting Central Park with her doggie friends is wined and dined and has her portrait painted. She’s the sensation when stopping at a tiny village for some milk. Everyone loves Helene.

And the reader can’t help but get swept up in the madness. You’re right there with Helene walking through the parks and as she adjusts to life in London. London has the history but there’s a sense of fear from the Londoners that Helene doesn’t have in New York. And when she gets to see her shop (the old Marks & Co shop at 84, Charing Cross Road) in person, you can’t help but feel sad, empty and thrilled at all once.

If you’ve ever been charmed by 84, Charing Cross Road and want to know what happened next, hunt down The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street. Like 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s a slight thing, easy to devour yet will stick with you. Of course if you’re Blacklight…well, I think there’s the new issue of Computer Music at Barnes & Noble…

Helene Hanff: 84, Charing Cross Road

~ Wendy-Marie ~ Leave a comment

Looking at the hardcover of Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road, it’s hard to believe such a slight book spawned a cult, film adaptations and a stage production in both London and New York. It’s just under 100 pages long and nothing but LETTERS, some no more than a few scrawled lines.

But it’s what’s in the letters that’s made of invisible steel. From New York, there’s the brash, bossy Helene Hanff desperate to read/own great works. From London there’s the secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road filled with inexpensive treasures. And more than books cross the Atlantic. Helene gets a glimpse into the narrowness of everyday life in post war Britain and decides to do something even if it’s as small and simple as order a package of tinned foods and real eggs to be shared amongst the bookshop staff. The bookstaff gets a glimpse into the exotic sounding life of a writer living in far off New York City even if the writer’s days and nights are filled with cigarettes, gin and babysitting verus nightclubs and champagne. A true friendship develops that not even financial misfortune and death can break.

There are writers who can spend their lives trying to craft something glorious and meaningful. In a few handfuls of letters dashed off at moment’s notice during her everyday life, letters that anyone else might have thrown in the trash Helene Hanff had her masterpiece. Now try and read 84, Charing Cross Road and NOT become part of the cult.