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The Object Parade: Essays
This new collection of interconnected essays marches to a provocative what if one way to understand your life was to examine the objects within it? Which objects would you choose? What memories do they hold? And lined up in a row, what stories do they have to tell?
In recalling her experience, Dinah’s essays each begin with one thing — real or imaginary, lost or found, rare or ordinary, animal, vegetable, mineral, edible. Each object comes with a memory or a story, and so sparks an opportunity for rue or reflection or confession or revelation, having to do with her coming of age as a daughter, mother, actor, and the piano that holds secrets to family history and inheritance; the gifted watches that tell so much more than time; the little black dress that carries all of youth’s love and longing; the purple scarf that stands in for her journey from New York to Los Angeles, across stage and screen, to pursue her acting dream.
Read together or apart, the essays project the bountiful mosaic of life and love, of moving to Los Angeles and raising a family; of coming to terms with place, relationship, failures, and success; of dealing with up-ended notions about home and family and career and aging, too. Taken together, they add up to a pastiche of an artful and quirky life, lovingly remembered, compellingly told, wrapped up in the ties that bind the passage of time.
In recalling her experience, Dinah’s essays each begin with one thing — real or imaginary, lost or found, rare or ordinary, animal, vegetable, mineral, edible. Each object comes with a memory or a story, and so sparks an opportunity for rue or reflection or confession or revelation, having to do with her coming of age as a daughter, mother, actor, and the piano that holds secrets to family history and inheritance; the gifted watches that tell so much more than time; the little black dress that carries all of youth’s love and longing; the purple scarf that stands in for her journey from New York to Los Angeles, across stage and screen, to pursue her acting dream.
Read together or apart, the essays project the bountiful mosaic of life and love, of moving to Los Angeles and raising a family; of coming to terms with place, relationship, failures, and success; of dealing with up-ended notions about home and family and career and aging, too. Taken together, they add up to a pastiche of an artful and quirky life, lovingly remembered, compellingly told, wrapped up in the ties that bind the passage of time.
- GenresEssaysNonfictionMemoir
200 pages, Hardcover
First published April 8, 2014
7 people are currently reading
251 people want to read
About the author
Dinah Lenney
12 books35 followersDinah Lenney wrote The Object Parade, Bigger than Life: A Murder, a Memoir, and co-authored Acting for Young Actors. Her prose has been published in many journals and anthologies, among them The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Agni, Creative Nonfiction, The Washington Post, the Paris Review Daily, and Brevity. She serves as core faculty for in the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her TED talk is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBo-h.... And her new book, COFFEE, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury. http:// www.dinahlenney.com.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 12, 2016
This collection essays, which uses as a jumping-off point the accidental treasures accumulated over years, is itself a treasure.
It's touching without ever approaching sappiness, funny without ever being jokey. Most of all, it's a thoughtful and moving consideration--of tiny moments and not so tiny ones, of people and places as well as things that give a life meaning.
The essays vary in tone. Some are provocative, some wistful, some playful, but none of them are only one thing. And while there are no weak links, you've got to run out and get your hands on the book especially because of "Piano, Too," "Nests," and "Jeans and Clogs." And "Instructions." And "Dinah's Room." ...And "Chicken Stew." And, and, and... Oh, just read the collection. I think every piece is my favorite.
It's touching without ever approaching sappiness, funny without ever being jokey. Most of all, it's a thoughtful and moving consideration--of tiny moments and not so tiny ones, of people and places as well as things that give a life meaning.
The essays vary in tone. Some are provocative, some wistful, some playful, but none of them are only one thing. And while there are no weak links, you've got to run out and get your hands on the book especially because of "Piano, Too," "Nests," and "Jeans and Clogs." And "Instructions." And "Dinah's Room." ...And "Chicken Stew." And, and, and... Oh, just read the collection. I think every piece is my favorite.
July 1, 2016
I would be hard pressed to write a cogent paragraph about an object that has meaning for me. And to further compound the issue, draw truths that resonate with complete strangers, in that same paragraph. Lenny uses earrings to delve into her complicated relationship with her mother, a flattened spoon to talk about a family vacation and bird's nests to bring her sister's suicide attempt to light. I admire her even-toned clarity.
October 30, 2014
So much to think about after finishing this collection of warm, affecting essays, in which a life is (better) understood by considering the objects associated with it.
July 17, 2023
Such a wonderful collection of essays. The best way to read this is in one sitting, on a Sunday afternoon, preferably outside in the sunlight with a light breeze ruffling the pages. At least, that's how I felt as I read it. I felt such a personal connection to the events and atmosphere the book created, as if I was inhabiting the house where the Lenney family made memories and where their lives unfolded.
Among my favorite essays are:
"Chicken Stew," where all of Dinah's good intentions for an intellectually stimulating dinner party among simpatico guests turns into a major social disaster.
"Flight Jacket," which explores parental expectations between mothers and daughters, and the disappointments that accompany these relationships.
"Little Black Dress, Two," that delves into the actor's life, with all of the pitfalls of loving your art and yet not always being able to practice it to the fullest. It's a heartbreaking piece, buoyed by the family component that makes her unfulfilled success in the arts more bearable and yet still worth the effort and tears.
There are 32 essays, and both a prologue and epilogue, that use objects to help anchor memories, and all of them are a joy to experience. Funny, sad, intimate, with melancholy and celebration throughout. A terrific read, from start to finish.
Among my favorite essays are:
"Chicken Stew," where all of Dinah's good intentions for an intellectually stimulating dinner party among simpatico guests turns into a major social disaster.
"Flight Jacket," which explores parental expectations between mothers and daughters, and the disappointments that accompany these relationships.
"Little Black Dress, Two," that delves into the actor's life, with all of the pitfalls of loving your art and yet not always being able to practice it to the fullest. It's a heartbreaking piece, buoyed by the family component that makes her unfulfilled success in the arts more bearable and yet still worth the effort and tears.
There are 32 essays, and both a prologue and epilogue, that use objects to help anchor memories, and all of them are a joy to experience. Funny, sad, intimate, with melancholy and celebration throughout. A terrific read, from start to finish.
January 26, 2016
Finally got to read this collection by wonderful teacher, actor, human, Dinah Lenney. Lyric intensity matched with conversational wit--Lenney's trademark entertaining brilliance makes her complex explorations through a labyrinthine, never easy life into what is in fact an 'easy' read. The pages just keep turning. I loved the crisp compactness of these pieces that yet feel thoroughly satisfying: a bit like eating Brie or some wildly rich, wine-drenched pâté topped with nasturtium blossoms--all atop a simple butter cracker. She writes food, even when she isn't writing about food. Go eat up her book!
May 12, 2014
Just had the pleasure of hearing Dinah Lenney read from this marvelous book of essays. While individual objects are the purported subject of individual pieces, in truth The Object Parade is the story of a life, moments perceptively selected and elegantly examined. The essays are beautiful on the page and wonderful to hear aloud.
May 26, 2014
A lovely book of essays About objects that touched or affected Dinah's life some happy memories some sad.from her Moms earrings to a jacket of hers she thought her daughter would take to college.each essay is a little portrait of her life real life memories .this I a an exquisite book highly recommend .
March 31, 2015
Beautiful language, intriguing concept.
January 13, 2023
I think we have all, at some time or another, taken a look at the objects around us and marveled at the stories each item could tell—about ourselves, our histories, our dreams (languishing or fulfilled), or our relationships. In this collection of interconnected essays, character actress Dinah Lenney transfers her “object reflections” to the page. Each essay is titled after one object (some remarkable but most rather mundane) that serves a conveyer of stories from the actress’s storied life. Through Lenney’s things, we visit memories of her time in New York, her move to Los Angeles, her troubled relationship with her mother, and her devotion to her children. Lenney ages with the book, in years as well as wisdom, with essays growing increasingly insightful and nuanced.
The essays here can be read individually, but together they form a poignant memoir spanning every emotion, every type of relationship, and nearly every life stage. I found the portions related to motherhood especially moving, and I marveled at Lenney’s transparency regarding less-than-admirable character tendencies and flaws. This is an honest and imminently relatable memoir, told through lovely prose that can be read at multiple levels. The metaphors are heavy, at times heavy-handed and occasionally too opaque for me to fully comprehend, but I was drawn to Lenney’s reflective style and complex ways of viewing her world and her experiences.
It was the premise of this collection that caught my attention, and I think it would make a great journal prompt for any aspiring writer or introspective soul. In fact, I’m liking the idea of doing something similar this on the blog. Stay tuned!
My Rating: 4.25 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
The essays here can be read individually, but together they form a poignant memoir spanning every emotion, every type of relationship, and nearly every life stage. I found the portions related to motherhood especially moving, and I marveled at Lenney’s transparency regarding less-than-admirable character tendencies and flaws. This is an honest and imminently relatable memoir, told through lovely prose that can be read at multiple levels. The metaphors are heavy, at times heavy-handed and occasionally too opaque for me to fully comprehend, but I was drawn to Lenney’s reflective style and complex ways of viewing her world and her experiences.
It was the premise of this collection that caught my attention, and I think it would make a great journal prompt for any aspiring writer or introspective soul. In fact, I’m liking the idea of doing something similar this on the blog. Stay tuned!
My Rating: 4.25 Stars // Book Format: Kindle
January 15, 2018
I enjoyed the writing in this book tremendously. The structure is an innovative take on memoir - short essays on objectives that have been significant in the author's life. The writing is very different than what a normally prefer (long sentences, a lot of introspection) but it worked for me in the end. I did feel like in reading this, I could hear the author's voice; the writing is much more conversational. The essays "Green Earrings," "The Genera's Table," "Nests" and "Poster" were particularly evocative and well-conveyed.
October 12, 2025
3.5 stars. I loved the premise of this, but the execution often wandered too far afield, or was into such interior detail that I lost the thread. It reminded me a bit of Maggie O'Farrell's " I Am. I Am. I Am: 17 Brushes with Death," although O'Farrell was beneficially succinct and to the point. I'll be interested to hear what my book club members think of this.
May 5, 2017
3.5 stars
March 2, 2018
3.5 stars
July 30, 2016
hadn’t really appreciated how objects tell stories until Sebald. He was always coming into landscapes and seeing odd little objects left behind, and to him they were like ghosts.
“Things outlast us,” he wrote.
“They know more about us than we know about them; they carry the experiences they have had with us inside them…”
The objects in The Object Parade, by L.A. based actress and writer Dinah Lenney, aren’t so much ghosts, but alive. When she looks at them, they tell her stories, carry her memories. They are like those delicious tiny objects in a dollhouse: they speak.
Some of her objects are “big ticket” and have the weight of symbols – an inherited Steinway piano that Lenney wants her daughter to play, a movie star’s chandelier that sets the tone of Lenney’s L.A. bungalow, a set of Tiffany watches given to Lenney and her husband on their marriage.
The essays that come from them, and make up this book on Lenney's life, are open and generous, often about valor, dignity, failure, success, longing.
Just as open and telling are the stories that come from smaller objects – the little black dress, Bustelo Coffee (o Bustelo of the late 80s!), a flight jacket that Lenney treasures but her daughter abandons.
They are talismans, the brass ring dangling just in front of us, the genie’s lamp -- how we stroke and stroke it hoping for success, ecstacy, perfection.
For me, perhaps the most devastating object in her collection is a set of Green Earrings, jewels of a mysteriously glowing power that her mother both gives and does not give, in a powerful ongoing somewhat torturous (to me) mother-daughter struggle of aging, beauty, succession.
They are a stand in for Lenney’s mother herself: they have the same intensity, weight and unattainability.
Of course, Lenney’s objects make us think of our own, and for me I could not but think of the Green Ring my own mother gave me. It was the most valuable thing she ever gave me -- materially -- and yet she did not give it to me, really.
It was an emerald ring from South Africa, belonging to my mother's mother, the only truly luxurious gift my grandfather had ever given my grandmother in some fifty years of marriage.
But the staff in the nursing home where my grandmother later died, stole the emerald and replaced it with glass. My mother did not know this when she inherited the ring -- at least not for some years. Then she finally had it appraised, and realized it was only glass, and at that point it lost its value to her, and she gave it to me.
As I recognized some time ago that my mother had never once given me anything of material value - only imitations and throwaways -- I can now barely look at the ring. It relays so much about the way my mother valued me.
Of course, there are things other than the material...
But to quote Lenney’s epigraph:
“I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Because it will complicate your life.”
Edmund de Waal
“Things outlast us,” he wrote.
“They know more about us than we know about them; they carry the experiences they have had with us inside them…”
The objects in The Object Parade, by L.A. based actress and writer Dinah Lenney, aren’t so much ghosts, but alive. When she looks at them, they tell her stories, carry her memories. They are like those delicious tiny objects in a dollhouse: they speak.
Some of her objects are “big ticket” and have the weight of symbols – an inherited Steinway piano that Lenney wants her daughter to play, a movie star’s chandelier that sets the tone of Lenney’s L.A. bungalow, a set of Tiffany watches given to Lenney and her husband on their marriage.
The essays that come from them, and make up this book on Lenney's life, are open and generous, often about valor, dignity, failure, success, longing.
Just as open and telling are the stories that come from smaller objects – the little black dress, Bustelo Coffee (o Bustelo of the late 80s!), a flight jacket that Lenney treasures but her daughter abandons.
They are talismans, the brass ring dangling just in front of us, the genie’s lamp -- how we stroke and stroke it hoping for success, ecstacy, perfection.
For me, perhaps the most devastating object in her collection is a set of Green Earrings, jewels of a mysteriously glowing power that her mother both gives and does not give, in a powerful ongoing somewhat torturous (to me) mother-daughter struggle of aging, beauty, succession.
They are a stand in for Lenney’s mother herself: they have the same intensity, weight and unattainability.
Of course, Lenney’s objects make us think of our own, and for me I could not but think of the Green Ring my own mother gave me. It was the most valuable thing she ever gave me -- materially -- and yet she did not give it to me, really.
It was an emerald ring from South Africa, belonging to my mother's mother, the only truly luxurious gift my grandfather had ever given my grandmother in some fifty years of marriage.
But the staff in the nursing home where my grandmother later died, stole the emerald and replaced it with glass. My mother did not know this when she inherited the ring -- at least not for some years. Then she finally had it appraised, and realized it was only glass, and at that point it lost its value to her, and she gave it to me.
As I recognized some time ago that my mother had never once given me anything of material value - only imitations and throwaways -- I can now barely look at the ring. It relays so much about the way my mother valued me.
Of course, there are things other than the material...
But to quote Lenney’s epigraph:
“I am giving you this because I love you. Or because it was given to me. Because I bought it somewhere special. Because you will care for it. Because it will complicate your life.”
Edmund de Waal
Read
December 13, 2014This collection of essays written around personal objects of the author, exposes the author's innermost life in finely woven patches of fabric. I was underwhelmed with the first several essays—although the writing is engaging, almost poetic—because I hadn't yet figured out what the author was trying to achieve. But soon, I began to connect the dots and saw a most beautiful tapestry emerging. Midway through the chapters, I was surprised at how emotionally resonant the stories had become for me, and how the author had become, at least for the duration of my reading of this book, a warm, loving friend, whose every line of prose fastened me more securely to her life. By the final chapters, I found myself weeping when she describes trying to parse how her dead father now fits into her life. The Object Parade earns my highest recommendation for literature that carries the reader to a magical place within him- or herself, and exposes the most obscure areas of the heart to light.
Want to read
April 25, 2015Festival of Books 2015
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews