The Librarian Spy by Madeline Martin
The title of this book caught my eye while browsing my local public library last month. Alas, it's not really about a librarian or a spy. In addition, the book has two main characters, and the other (a woman in the French Resistance in Lyon) is not referenced in the title - and the cover image of two women doesn't reflect her either.
The opening sentence should have tipped me off that this book wasn't quite right for me. "There was nothing Ava Harper loved more than the smell of old books." So stereotypical. In April 1943, Ava is a librarian in the Rare Book Room of the Library of Congress - a dream job. She's recruited to go to Lisbon, Portugal (a neutral country during World War II) to collect newspapers and other daily publications from local newsstands, to be microfilmed. The film would be sent back to the United States to be reviewed for clues about the enemy. So she's not really doing real librarian work any more, and she's not really a spy, at least not in the way one would typically think of a spy. Disappointing for this retired librarian - who managed archives and special collections (i.e., rare books) as part of her job.
The other storyline involves Helene Belanger, whose husband Joseph, active in the Resistance, is missing. (The opening sentence for her first chapter is also cliché - "Words had power.") A woman appears at her door looking for "Pierre," which turns out to be Joseph's code name. He has been providing fake identification for Jews. Helene impulsively gives the women her own identity papers. The next day, her husband's best friend rescues her on the street (she'd been stopped by a Nazi officer), pretending to be her husband and handing her new papers - now she is Elaine Rousseau. She begins working with the Resistance printing a clandestine newspaper - one that Ava later collects, and that leads to the linking storyline that drives the narrative.
Author Madeline Martin explains in a note at the end she based Ava on real librarians with the real Interdepartmental Committee for the Acquisition of Foreign Publications (IDC), part of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the wartime precursor to the CIA - although she states the IDC "did not send any female operatives to Lisbon." The character of Helene/Elaine was influenced by Lucienne Guezennec (real name Marie-Antoinette Morat), a member of the French Resistance with very similar experiences.
It was obvious that World War II Lisbon - and Rossio Square and Montserrate Palace in Sintra - were well-researched. However, Ava's life there seemed a little unreal - her nice apartment, the great food, and especially her romance with the mysterious James from the British Embassy. I found it hard to believe Ava would have brought or bought formalwear for some of the events and places James took her to. Helene/Elaine blames her husband's best friend for his arrest, and seems to somehow expect him to risk his life to deliver her message to a husband she had earlier been angry with, for preventing her earlier involvement in the Resistance in order to protect her. Character development in this book could have been better - everyone felt a bit flat, and it was hard to get invested in anyone. Still, it was a worthwhile read if only to learn about new places and another aspect of the war I knew nothing about.
It was obvious that World War II Lisbon - and Rossio Square and Montserrate Palace in Sintra - were well-researched. However, Ava's life there seemed a little unreal - her nice apartment, the great food, and especially her romance with the mysterious James from the British Embassy. I found it hard to believe Ava would have brought or bought formalwear for some of the events and places James took her to. Helene/Elaine blames her husband's best friend for his arrest, and seems to somehow expect him to risk his life to deliver her message to a husband she had earlier been angry with, for preventing her earlier involvement in the Resistance in order to protect her. Character development in this book could have been better - everyone felt a bit flat, and it was hard to get invested in anyone. Still, it was a worthwhile read if only to learn about new places and another aspect of the war I knew nothing about.
The Map Colorist by Rebecca D'Harlingue
This was an interesting piece of historical fiction. Set in Amsterdam mostly in 1660 and 1661, Anneke van Brug is a young woman who longs to go beyond the map coloring she does to help her family's finances, and actually make a map herself. Sitting in on cartography lessons for her brother, and using notes from her artist father's earlier trip to Africa, she does just that. Along the way, she has to deal with society's expectations for women, as well of those of her employer and a client's adulterous wife. Rebecca D'Harlingue's well-researched novel incorporates real people from the era into the story.
The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
Author Kim Michele Richardson, who grew up in Kentucky, combines two pieces of her state's history in this historical fiction novel. Nineteen-year-old Cussy Mary "Bluet" Carter (named for the area in France her great-grandfather was from) is part of the Pack Horse Library Project, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) program where books were delivered to residents in remote areas of Appalachia from 1935 to 1943 (the story takes place in 1936). She and her widowed coal miner father, Elijah, live in the community of Troublesome Creek (a real place in Breathitt County in eastern Kentucky) and are also the last of the Blue People of Kentucky, with blue skin caused by a rare genetic disorder.
I'd heard of this book a while back and finally got around to reading it. As a retired librarian, I especially loved Cussy's interactions with her library service patrons, who call her "Book Woman." Cussy rides her stubborn but protective mule Junia (the only positive to come out of her horrid first marriage) to her library patrons in the backwoods. She brings them books, newspapers, magazines, and scrapbooks (made from recipes, quilt and sewing patterns, poems, and articles clipped from other sources with home and farm tips). Her patrons all have personalities of their own, and Cussy strives to meet their needs, sometimes even giving them food she could use herself - because many of them are starving.
My favorite interaction was on pages 150-153, with Devil John Smith, a moonshiner who complains to Cussy that the books she brings makes his children lazy and his wife late with his supper: "They've wasted the kerosene and burnt all the candles and damn near broke me." Cussy pulls out a Boys Life magazine and a scrapbook and describes to Devil John the articles within them, with hunting and fishing tips, cooking and canning recipes, and even "picking the best witch sticks" and "real good diviner tips." Even though he cannot read, Devil John ultimately takes the items. "Well, I reckon these can't hurt none. Might get 'em working." That's exactly what a good librarian is supposed to do.
It was also interesting to learn about the Blue People of Kentucky. Some of them are only blue in the lips and fingernails, but others have darker skin. Cussy is the latter, and experiences a lot of prejudice, and deemed barely above a fellow pack horse librarian who is Black.
Descriptions of the Kentucky landscape are vivid - as are some of the depictions of the discrimination and ill-treatment Cussy faces, as well as the difficult lives of the people in rural Kentucky in this era. There are incidents that will be triggers for some readers.
The book's ending left me with questions - which may be answered in its stand-alone sequel, which I hope to read next month. There is also an author's note explaining some of her research and sources, archival photos of the Pack Horse Librarians, a reading group guide, and questions for and answers from the author.
