Book Review: Through Charley's Door

Title: Through Charley's Door



Author: Emily Kimbrough

Date: 1952

Publisher: Harper & Row

ISBN: none

Length: 273 pages

Quote: "To be economically independent is the only way I know for a woman to become mentally independent."

Emily Kimbrough's mother was saying that in 1923 as she encouraged young Emily to get a job, even though Emily was embarrassed by "the sentiments I knew were hers and hers alone." She might have been even more embarrassed when her mother "in private...expanded...that though I would be fed, housed, and clothed, whatever I wanted or needed above the bare necessities--and very bare, she inevitably stressed--would have to come of my own providing." And, of course, the most embarrassing part of all must have been that when Emily and her school friend, Cornelia Otis Skinner, tried acting, the daughter of once-famous actor Otis Skinner had some success, but Emily had none. It would have to be an ordinary, non-glamorous job.

Luckily, Emily Kimbrough's glib, easy writing style happened to be what the Marshall Field department store was looking for, and her ability to shoehorn poetry into advertising slogans even seemed fresh in 1923. So young Emily entered the store "through Charley's door," the most fashionable side of the store, and became a successful ad writer.

Although Through Charley's Door contains some social commentary and lots of amusing anecdotes, libraries classified it as a business study; Kimbrough was greatly impressed by the way her employer did business. Those familiar with the stories of stores that went national or international during this period (Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney, et al.) will notice a certain common thread in all these stories, as in the more recent Wal-Mart success story. Some hardworking entrepreneur with a fanatical dedication to customer service built a single store into a huge corporation. Later the entrepreneur retired or died, the company had grown too big to offer comparable dedication or service, and reminiscences of the store's early days seem bitterly ironic to anyone who's had to do business with the store as it has become...

Through Charley's Door still has good business advice to offer today's hardworking entrepreneurs, and may also interest those studying women's history. Both Emily Kimbrough and Cornelia Otis Skinner wrote several volumes of memoirs and observations, separately and together. Skinner was the source of the memorable one-line observations. Kimbrough's independent work lacks one-liners, but makes up for it in historical details and amusing anecdotes. Skinner was the city sophisticate; Kimbrough wrote as a wholesome Midwesterner who happened to have gone to college. Their collected work makes an interesting study in social history and in friendship between women who appreciated, and cultivated, very different styles.

As a story, Through Charley's Door could be classified as "chick lit": no life-and-death suspense, not even a romance, although the dedication page suggests romance offstage; suitable for reading in bed when you want to get up on time in the morning.

It's a collector's item, though. Unlikely to be reprinted, yet of interest to some book collectors, it's currently available from this web site for only $15 per book plus $5 per package plus $1 per online payment. Three more books of this size will fit into one $5 package, if that's any consolation to you, and you're free to let them be books by living authors who can at least be encouraged by the Fair Trade Books system...