The Library Book, by Susan Orleans

One way to describe Susan Orleans' The Library Book (2018) is obsession.  Another is free association.  The catalyst for the book is the fire that destroyed much of the Los Angeles Library in 1987, burning or damaging some 900,000 books.  Obsession or free association, this fascinating book touches on or explores the place of libraries in society, especially American society, their history, their nature.  It examines the lives of the directors of the library, one of whom in particular, Henry Lummus, is a fascinating if not bizarre American figure.  Other topics are arson, the role of women in libraries, criminal investigations, street people.  Orleans weaves in aspects of her own life, especially her mother, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and who died midway through the book’s writing.  Libraries are a cultural memory.  They preserve the record of a culture when memories disappear because of disease or death. For this reason, Orleans associates the burning of a library as a heinous act which destroy those memories.  She notes how dictators have used the destruction of libraries as a method of oppression.  She cites the Nazis, who destroyed as many books of Jewish culture, religion, and history as possible in its campaign to eradicate Judaism.  She also focuses on the character Harry Peake, briefly arrested as a suspect in the library fire.  She examines his life in some detail and the argument for and against his having started the fire.  She cannot decide herself.  She notes that the science behind arson is suspect, and that arson is often a cause resorted to by investigators who can’t find any other explanation for a fire.  (She notes that shaken baby syndrome has been used in a similar way).