Storybook stuff

They were worlds apart in everything but the simplicity of their humanity, and so they were really not apart at all.

Paul Gallico,  Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris

It's good to be Cinderella, but it's also good to be the Fairy Godmother,  as Paul Gallico shows in his charming 1958 short novel Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris.

Ida Harris, a middle-aged widow, spends her days tidying up the clutter left by wealthy Londoners. The only beauty in her life, other than her friendship with another charwoman and her memories of her late husband, is found in flowers. Then she sees a costly Christian Dior gown in the closet of one of the women she works for, and she resolves to own a Christian Dior dress no less beautiful. She has no place to wear such a gown, yet still she desires it more than anything.

It takes her years to save enough money, but she has nothing else to save her money for. When she thinks she has enough, she heads for Paris and the exclusive Christian Dior shop, thinking she can pick a gown off the rack and be back in London by the end of the day. It's not that easy, of course, especially not for a humble middle-class working woman among the snobs and elites found in an exclusive Paris dress shop.

But this is "storybook stuff," a phrase Gallico uses in his book, and over the next few days Mrs. 'Arris, as she calls herself, transforms the lives of several of the people she meets more than they transform her.

Gallico's little book holds up well after more than 60 years, and a reader today can easily understand why it was once so popular with readers.