In 2008, native Manchester resident Susannah Talley discovered an abandoned dollhouse on her morning walk as she rounded East 93rd Street in New York City. That dollhouse became a broad emblem for Susannah’s life, her adventures, and her later-in-life love affair in Talley’s memoir, “The Dollhouse: A Love Story.”
A successful writer and producer, Talley met her husband, Truman “Mac” Talley when she wasn’t expecting love. Mac was a successful New York book editor. Susanna had completed an illustrated novella, “Celeste’s Holiday,” about her predeceased husband, Pierre, and his estrangement during World War II at age 14 from his sister after being separated while fleeing their home in Nazi-controlled Paris.
Mac and Susannah met for dinner to talk “Celeste’s Holiday,” and while they never worked together on the novella, they ended up deeply in love. Mac asked Susannah to marry him four times in six years. But it was an accident—a truly sobering one in which Mac was hit by a truck leaving his Manhattan office for lunch—that sealed it for Susannah. They married, and because of family dynamics, began life together in her “treehouse” (a.k.a., Susannah’s 475-square foot studio apartment).
These details are necessary to understand this unconventional memoir. First, “Dollhouse: A Love Story,” is produced as an almost coffee table book-meets-memoir-meets-scrapbook. It’s a breezy read, almost as if Susannah Talley is writing a letter to you, her friend. Her writing is utterly personal … offering details on life with Mac, his decline into dementia, her “Happy Days” middle class upbringing with her sisters and parents, her love of theater and her creative life as a writer, a designer, and an editor. In the end, this is a story of a woman guided by adventure, which she finds in Massachusetts (both Prides Crossing and Manchester), in Manhattan, in her family, her work, her projects, and her loves.
But, back to 2008, and the dollhouse Susannah found on the side of the street. Talley lugs her giant discarded dollhouse (nearly as tall as Talley herself) into their tiny apartment and begins lovingly decorating it, room by room, using it to restore memories. It doesn’t take her long to set about writing a piece on a dollhouse transformation, while she keeps Mac company. The unique project draws Mac’s attention, by then into his decline, and without giving too much away, Susannah translates memories into organized rooms that are the chapters (“The Library,” “The Nursery,” “The Boudoir,” among them) in her past.
For theater enthusiasts, “The Dollhouse: A Love Story” is now being considered for a musical adaptation. This isn’t surprising, considering the screenplay of Celeste’s Holiday was dubbed “truly scrumptious!” by Oscar winning actress and director, Emma Thompson. Talley’s dream set designer would be Beowulf Boritt (Google it). As you read the book, and enjoy its many colorful photographs, you will see why.
