In the May 2009 issue of Shambhala Sun, Lily Koppel writes about her meetings with the author of the diary, Florence Wolfson Howitt. They first met at Florence's home in Connecticut and later in Florida.
Lily discovered the diary in a dumpster in Manhattan in 2003. The journal painted a picture of 1930's New York - horseback riding in Central Park, summer excursions to the Catskills, and an obsession with a famous avant-garde actress, Eva Le Gallienne. Florence began writing the day she received the diary on her fourteenth birthday in 1929. Its nearly 2,000 entries, written in ink that is now faded, captured the passions and ambitions of an intensely creative young woman.
I first wrote about this book on January 6, 2009. At that time I expressed my uncertainty as to the truth of the story. So here now is another look at Lily and Florence. There is a terrific audio interview with Lily and Rod Meade Sperry, one of the magazine's editors, here
I found the connection to Buddhism a bit labored, but interesting. Now I intend to go back and finish reading the diary. I gave up on it about two-thirds of the way through.
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