The author Brianna Labuskes is a kindred spirit. She has written some books about books. These are works of historical fiction. In her novel “The Lost Book of Bonn” she wrote about youth groups in Germany resisting the Nazis. The Nazis were so intolerant and censorious they burned books they disagreed with.
In “The Librarian of Burned Books” she wrote a story about how books and libraries have been crucial for getting people through difficult periods in their history. In her latest, “The Boxcar Librarian,” we learn about an incredible project that took place a century ago when a railroad boxcar in Montana was stocked with books so workers in remote areas could have access to them.
The story is told across multiple timelines-we understand that eventually these stories and some of the characters will converge, and they do. The earliest timeline opens in 1914 in a place called Hell Raisin’ Gulch. Colette Durand, our future boxcar librarian, is living with her father. He’s a copper miner. He’s also active in protesting the unsavory business practices of the huge mining company that controlled Montana back then.
Her dad is also, amazingly, a William Shakespeare nut and can quote most of the Bard’s plays verbatim. I don’t consider it a spoiler to reveal that he will be murdered. Colette’s pursuit of his killer becomes the sinuous thread that weaves together the timelines.
The story actually opens in Washington, D.C. in 1936. A character named Millie Lang is working for one of the New Deal programs that were created during the Great Depression. She’s about to be sent out to Montana to solve a mystery. There’s something strange going on out there, a government travel guide was submitted to them-it was all gibberish.
Then there’s a third timeline: Missoula, 1924. Alice Monroe is our character here. She becomes the mastermind behind the creation of the library in a railroad boxcar. Okay, so I have mentioned the murder and that gives us our crime novel element but there are also things here that qualify this story as a romance as well as a mystery
Colette has a big crush on a shadowy, handsome activist who turns up now and then to rile up the copper miners. In Alice’s initial timeline she’s attracted to a very rich young fellow who behaves in baffling ways. Years later, when Millie arrives in Montana, she will encounter some of these characters as she tries to decipher several mysteries.
A book about books, what fun! I interviewed the author recently and quickly discovered we have something wonderful in common; we are descendants of Lithuanian immigrants.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
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