The Library Book

The Library Book by Susan Orlean (2018) It's no secret that the author, Susan Orlean, was to some degree an inspiration for one of the characters in my novel, The Doughnuts. Not too close, of course, and only a starting place. I had visited the downtown Los Angeles library sometime in the 1990s, and when I started The Doughnuts, a decade later, I recalled my visit when I imagined this character visiting a friend who was a librarian there. So it was kind of a shock to me, having just finally finished my novel, to see this book emerge. It's the kind of coincidence I'm used to, however, and attribute to being “on the right track.” The Library Book starts out as an account of the horrendous Los Angeles Library fire of 1986, and then an investigation into, and portrait of, the primary suspect of arson. As I'm somewhat allergic to anything even close to “True Crime,” I was worried I'd not find enough to like here, but that's really only the frame for a much larger mediation on libraries—the concept, history, and evolution of libraries. Also, there's a lot of fascinating portraits of individuals involved in the history of the LA library system. Even the in-depth portrait of the arson suspect was fascinating—a certain type of character that most people will recognize. Most of all, though, the book is an inspiration for someone like me who really loves libraries. Any time I visit a new town—well, the diner is my first stop—but the library is my second, essential, stop. A lot of my best early memories are about our local Carnegie library (Sandusky, Ohio). We also had a pretty magical bookmobile park on the end of our street in the summer. A passage near the end is worth quoting, here—it kind of encapsulates the almost mystical quality libraries have for me: “All the things that are wrong in the world seem conquered by a library's simple unspoken promise: Here I am, please tell me your story; here is my story, please listen.”