The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill: A review

This book features a story within a story which made it (sometimes) confusing for me to follow.

The library in the title is the Boston Public Library which is where one of the book's characters, Australian thriller writer Hannah Tigone, sets her story. We never really meet Hannah except through the emails addressed to her by someone named Leo. Leo is apparently an aspiring writer himself and a fan of Hannah's. He reads her manuscript and offers her suggestions, as any good editor would, about her language and the plot of her novel.

Leo's emails come at the end of each chapter of Hannah's manuscript. Those chapters almost always end on a cliffhanger.

The story within the story, i.e. Hannah's manuscript, has an Australian woman named Winifred, aka Freddie, living in Boston on a scholarship. The book opens with her sitting at a table at the BPL with three strangers when they are shocked by a scream. The authorities tell everyone to remain in place while they sort out what has happened.

What has happened is that a woman has been murdered and we are apprised up front that one of those people at the table with Freddie is the murderer.

Freddie herself is attempting to write a novel and she decides to use her tablemates as characters in the book. She refers to them as Handsome Man (Cain), Freud Girl (Marigold), and Heroic Chin (Whit). As they are trapped at the table by circumstances, they converse and establish friendships. A bond of those friendships is the fact that they are now each other's alibis. But not everything is as it seems.

As I indicated in the beginning, this twisty plot was a bit of a challenge to follow and I sometimes felt lost. It was a clever story and Sulari Gentill, a writer I had never read and indeed had never heard of before, did yeoman duty in attempting to keep it all straight, but I frankly felt that the Leo gambit added no value to the tale and if his comments had been omitted, I think it would have made for a better read. His comments just interrupted the flow of the story, again to no positive effect.

I looked Gentill up after the fact and learned that she has a LOT of books published all the way back to 2010. The majority of her books are part of a crime fiction series featuring a character called Rowland Sinclair. Maybe I'll get around to reading some of them one of these days.

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

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