Meet Me at the Museum

This is just what I wanted.

I love epistolary novels. A story in letters creates a novel that is immediately intimate. Meet Me at the Museum is well-crafted and heartfelt without being maudlin or sentimental.

Tina Hopgood, farm wife in East Anglia, writes to Dr. Glob in Denmark, a professor who dedicated a book about The Tollund Man to her and her classmates when she was a girl. Dr. Glob is deceased, so the curator of the museum, Anders Larsen, responds to Tina’s inquiry, which at first sparks a casual, friendly correspondence that soon blossoms into letters between two lonely people confiding their fears, regrets, and hopes to one another.

Anders and Tina are both in their 60s, a time of life, Anders explains, where there is more show more behind them than ahead of them, and yet there’s still time to make a change. Anders is widowed and his children have grown up and moved away. He is alone, and lonely. Tina is married with a farm full of her children and grandchildren, and yet she is also alone and lonely. The both find the companionship they never had in one another.

The ideas explored in this book were profound: feeling alone in a crowded room, questioning life decisions and wondering if those choices mattered, being overwhelmed with noticing things one once took for granted. This book is far from being trite; it offers insight into the big questions that are revealed when one takes a step away from the mundane.

It is a beautiful book. At fewer than 300 pages, there is still enough substance within the letters to gradually develop a relationship that is succinct and revelatory, and the denouement is satisfying without giving away too much.

Highly recommended if you enjoyed 84, Charing Cross Road or The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Meet Me at the Museum is a stellar example of all that can be accomplished with letters.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Flatiron Books for the advance copy in exchange for my review. show less

There is a lot to admire in Meet Me at the Museum. For one thing, it's an epistolary novel. I love them, but they don't show up too often these days. The story focuses on the correspondence between a farmer's wife living in northern England and a curator at a Danish Museum. Tina's best friend, Bella, recently died. Ever since they were girls at school and studied the Tollund Man, they planned to go to Denmark to see him, but somehow the time was never right. Tina writes to the museum with some questions and is answered by Anders, an archaeologist at the Silkeborg Museum. Thus begins a correspondence that develops into a deep friendship.

The second thing I really liked about this novel is the way that, in corresponding with one another, show more Tina and Anders begin to re-examine their lives, their dreams, their life philosophies--in short, their very selves. Writing each letter becomes almost a form of self-exploration. Although these two characters seem very different at the outset, as their friendship develops, we--and they--learn that they are much more alike than it wouuld at first appear.

The third thing I like is that the book demonstrates what it means to have a truly deep friendship. Tina discusses her long friendship with Bella, but we also see her friendship with Anders as it grows.

So what didn't I like? Well, the ending. Unfortunately, in an otherwise unique book, the author took the easy way out and gave us a stereotypical ending, when there were so many other rewarding ways in which it could have gone. That's why I can only give this novel 4 stars, and I was considering going down to 3. show less

Another winner from LT! I loved this book and I’m going to buy a copy to have on my shelves.

I really enjoy epistolary novels, and this one tugged at me harder than most because one of my closest friends lives in Denmark and he and I have been corresponding for years, so the parallel pushed it up that extra half star.

If you don’t have a friend in Denmark you correspond with, it’s still a good book. I’m not sure how to describe it really, except to say it feels like a very realistic correspondence between two people who have never met, yet have become close. There’s a hesitation, a caution, in the sharing of opinions that rings true and the storylines that slowly and subtly unfold are the storylines that unfold everyday, show more everywhere.

There’s no happy ending, but there’s no unhappy ending either. It ends with hope. A genuinely lovely story. show less

Lovely epistolary book (my personal catnip) about an accidental, unlikely correspondence between two lonely individuals who have reached their 60s and are wondering how to define the meaning of what they have and haven't accomplished in their lives. Youngson is one of those writers who seems to be able to describe the human condition in simple yet new ways (Elizabeth Berg is another). There's not a lot of action in the story; it's a quiet yet powerful read that found me re-reading certain passages just to savor them. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending but I'll choose to interpret it the way I want and imagine my own version of what comes next. It's a credit to Anne Youngson's skill - she's created two characters who are so real show more and vivid that I can't imagine they're not out there somewhere continuing their story. I can't believe this is her debut, but she gives hope to all aspiring authors that it's never too late. show less

Tina lives in Norfolk on the family farm and life is routine for her. However when her friend dies of cancer she is reminded of a time when their school class were featured in an article with a famous professor about the Tollund Man. She decides to write to the Professor. He is long-dead but her letter is answered by Anders, a curator at the museum, and they begin a correspondence. Anders is a widower and he worries about his daughter Karin, pregnant after a fling with a man who lives halfway round the world. Tina's daughter has married and moves away. both bare their souls to the other but when Tina's letters cease for a while a shift occurs in their relationship.

This is a very quiet book. It doesn't shout loudly and nothing really show more seems to happen but it is all the better for that. Two lonely people find each other through random coincidence and the reader sees the layers peeled back as they tell each other everything. Whilst there is not conclusion the reader is desperate to see Anders and Tina meet. The writing is gentle and the profound events are handled so delicately that they almost seem to slip into the narrative. A moving tale. show less

As someone who writes letters by hand, I am attracted to epistolary novels. Meet Me At the Museum met my expectations and more. I fell in love with Anders and Tina and their homey, intimate letters, much like my own to family and friends, full of everyday happenings, thoughts, and feelings. On the surface, I enjoyed learning about the similarities and differences between Denmark and England, and the characters' different lives. More deeply, I related to Anders as a quiet person who liked listening to others' stories, and sharing his own, but was not good at small talk and socializing in large groups. I also found Anders' fey wife endearing in the way she always put something in her husband's briefcase, a small memento of her, to find show more when he arrived at work. If David had a briefcase, I would do the same! I was fascinated by the Tollund Man, his gentle expression despite having died by sacrificial hanging. He seemed to have accepted his death for his community. This is a quiet, gentle read with relatable wisdoms, beautiful writing, and heartfelt honesty. show less

This novel came to my attention because it was on the shortlist for the Costa First Novel Award, the same award that last year brought us Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. Then I became more intrigued when I learned that the author wrote this debut novel at the age of 70.

This is an epistolary novel featuring the 18-month correspondence between Tina Hopgood, a farmer’s wife in East Anglia, and Anders Larsen, a curator at the Silkeborge Museum in Denmark. This museum houses the Tollund Man, an Iron Age man found in a Danish bog in 1950. An interest in this Tollund Man, who has a very serene expression on his face, prompts Tina to write to the museum. Slowly a friendship develops between her and the curator.

Initially, the letters are show more very formal. The salutations are “Dear Mr. Larsen” and “Dear Mrs. Hopgood” and the closings are “Regards, Anders Larsen, Curator” and “Sincerely, Tina Hopgood”. Gradually there is a shift in tone to “Dear Tina” and “Dear Anders” and “With all my good wishes, Anders” and “Love, Tina”. At first the letters, especially Anders’, are dry and factual but they slowly become warm and confiding. They express their thoughts and feelings and discuss regrets, losses, and disappointments, as well as spouses and children, music and poetry.

Tina mentions that she writes to help clarify her thoughts: “I am writing to you to make sense of myself.” Later, she comments, “when I sit down to write to you it seems as if all the strings holding my conscious mind together come loose and let my subconscious leak out.” But the letters work in other ways as well. Tina says, “writing to you has begun to feel like talking to [Bella, her best friend who recently died]” while Anders writes about “the comfort it has given me to be able to share”. Anders admits that he begins to pay more attention to the natural world, as Tina does, and that he listens more carefully because he wants to accurately relate what happened.

The two correspondents are very different in many ways. Hers is an outdoor life full of physical labour and she lives in a cluttered English farmhouse; his is an indoor, cerebral life and he lives in a Scandinavian house that could be described as minimalist. But what they share is more important. They are thoughtful and reflective and both are lonely.

It is obvious from the beginning that Tina is not happy with her life. She married young, “before it was quite the right time” and “became bogged down, almost literally, in the life of a farmer’s wife. . . . My life has been a buried one.” She complains that the farmhouse “and all its contents are like the mud collecting on my boots as I walk the dog round the fields in a rainy season. Holding me back, weighting me down, limiting how far I can travel.” She speaks of feeling that she has “sacrificed my life . . . for nothing” so her life has no meaning because she has “done so little, achieved so little,” always having a sense of being “in the wrong room all my life, the room where nothing was happening.”

Tina also wonders about the road she did not travel: “what is it that I have missed by having closed off so many choices so early in my life?” Anders has similar thoughts: “I wake in the night and wonder if, after all, I have wasted my chances and should have done something different with the time and the talents I have been given.” He thinks about his archaeological work and wonders “whether it was a worthwhile way to spend a life” and asks Tina, “At least what you do produces food. How does what I do benefit anyone?”

The theme is that regardless of age, change is possible. Both Tina and Anders are of an age when “there is more behind us than ahead of us,” but they conclude that “Nothing is so fixed it cannot be altered.” A somewhat homely image of picking raspberries is used to emphasize that a second chance is possible so one does not overlook “many of the fruits in this life.” Tina describes picking berries: “Whenever I pick raspberries, I go as carefully as possible down the row, looking for every ripe fruit. But however careful I am, when I turn round to go back the other way, I find fruit I had not seen when approaching the plants from the opposite direction. Another life, I thought, might be like a second pass down the row of raspberry canes; there would be good things I had not come across in my first life.” The two begin to speak of trying new things as picking raspberries and “the need to pick as many as possible” in the time given.

On the surface, this is a simple novel, but its reflections on life and the passage of time are perceptive. It is a delightful read with an ending some may not like but I think is perfect. Its style reminded me of Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road, but it has a more thoughtful tone. Tina speaks of the Tollund Man and “his serenity, his dignity, his look of wisdom” and that description fits the book: it is serene, dignified and wise.

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