Leanne Shapton

## Biography

Leanne Shapton (born June 25, 1973, in Mississauga, Ontario) is an author, artist and publisher based in New York City. She is currently the art editor at *The New York Review of Books*. She is the co-founder, with photographer Jason Fulford, of J&L Books, an internationally-distributed not-for-profit imprint specializing in art and photography books. Shapton is a fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. She grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada.

Shapton's *Swimming Studies* won the 2012 National Book Critic's Circle Award for autobiography, and was long listed for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2012. Shapton is represented by The Wylie Agency. The novel deals with her youth as a national competitive swimmer, who made it as far as the 1988 and 1992 Canadian Olympic trials. It is a "meditation on the gruelling years of training, the ways swimming is refracted through her memory now".

## Historical & Cultural Context

### Post-modernism

* Cultural, intelectual or artistic state lacking a clear central hierarchy or organizing principle.
* Attitudes and creative production which followed WWII.
* Celebrates diversity and eclecticism in all forms of art.
* Subject matter: human condition but with **richer and varied methods**.
* Identity is a common theme.

### Multimodality

Multimodal fiction is the phenomenon shared by those novels which combine various semiotic modes in the development of the narrative.

Multimodal fictional texts make use of verbal (text), non-verbal (photographs, pictures, diagrams, or unconventional typography) or a combination of both semiotic resources, which contributes to the narrative and character development.

After failed predictions about the death of the book, the printed novel not only continues to gain advocates in the second decade of the twenty-first century, but also keeps on evolving. One of the ways of doing so is becoming multimodal (incorporating non-verbal semiotic resources) with a strong visual imprint, while stylizing genres that have not been historically associated with fiction. At times, these can become structuring, that is, regulating the structure of the novel as a whole.

## Bibliography

* *Swimming Studies* (2006) - Autobiographical
* *Was she Pretty?* (2006)
* *Native Trees of Canada* (2010)
* *Guestbook: Ghost Stories* (2019)

## *Important Artifacts*

Full title: *Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry*

The novel, which **takes the form of an auction catalog**, uses photographs and accompanying captions to chronicle the romance and subsequent breakup of a couple via the relationship's significant possessions or "artifacts".

In Leanne Shapton's marvelously inventive and invented auction catalog, the 325 lots up for auction are what remain from the relationship between Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris (who aren't real people, but might as well be). Through photographs of the couple's personal effects -- the usual auction items (jewelry, fine art, and rare furniture) and the seemingly worthless (pajamas, Post-it notes, worn paperbacks) -- the story of a failed love affair vividly (and cleverly) emerges. From first meeting to final separation, the progress and rituals of intimacy are revealed through the couple's accumulated relics and memorabilia. And a love story, in all its tenderness and struggle, emerges from the evidence that has been left behind, laid out for us to appraise and appreciate.

* **Setting:** A span of 4 years between 2002 and 2006, mainly in New York.
* **Tone:** Melancholic, distant
* **Themes:** Love, identity, sentimental value
* **Narrator:** Third-person, Omniscient
* **Narrative method:** Opposite to the stream of consciousness technique - Reader accesses characters through context (posessions).

### Characters

**Lenore Doolan** – 26, Canadian. Writer for the New York Times.

**Harold Morris** – 39, British. Photographer who travels regularly on assignment.

### Analysis

* Different settings are presented through a series of pictures with brief descriptions.
* The images provide details that help understand the story.
* In some cases, non-illustrated items are described.
* The reader’s interaction with the novel is complex.
* Specific semiotic resources are directly connected with an individual character’s preferences.
* Fixed layout (as opposed to reflowable)

## Intro Paragraph

The middle of the twentieth century was marked by a lingering sensation of economic, political, and social instability in most of the western world. The years that followed the outbreak of the Second World War were characterized by a series events that were bound to set a before and after in the history of humankind. The world entered into a post-modern period, prompting artists to find new forms of conveying their fragmented, tumultuous reality into their pieces. In literature, post-modernist artists celebrated incoherence and discontinuity, often embracing the interdependence of their writings and rarely shying away from denouncing the issues disturbing their communities. Fictional works started to engage differently with the reader, even, in occasions, openly revealing its own fictional status, provoking a desired effect of self-awareness. Among these groundbreaking author is Leanne Shapton (b. 1973), a Canadian writer and art director whose pieces challenge the forms of traditional literature. In one of her most popular works *Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry* (2009, *Important Artifacts* from now onwards), Shapton makes use of an auction catalogue format to narrate the story of the complex romantic relationship between the protagonists, Lenore and Harold. *Important Artifacts* is a multimodal novel, as Shapton makes masterful use of graphic elements and page design to build its meaning.

### MLA citation

Shapton, Leanne. *Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry*. Macmillan, 2009.

## Sources

1. ↑  Leanne Shapton's biography - http://www.leanneshapton.com/bio
2. ↑  Mussetta, Mariana. “Important artifacts, de Leanne Shapton: cuando el catálogo se vuelve novela.” Revista de Literaturas Modernas. Uncuyo. 47.2 (2017): 65-86.
3. ↑  *Important Artifacts...* Macmillan Publishers.