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In The Librarianist, the latest novel from Patrick deWitt—author of The Sisters Brothers, French Exit—Bob Comet, a 71-year-old retired librarian, has chosen to spend the majority of his life reading, sequestering himself cozily in the pages of the world’s great literature. In his younger days, after Bob’s best friend Ethan had a marriage-destroying affair with his wife Connie, Bob decided that his best course of action was to sink himself into the secure world of books, of fully stocked, neatly organized stacks, and regularly-renewed library cards; to keep himself largely to himself. Now, in his older age, a chance encounter with a resident from a nearby nursing home compels him to delve into the lives of several of the home’s eccentric inhabitants, revising his life, whether he likes it or not, from the passive voice to the active. Not only that, but Bob is forced to go backwards, into his past, to finally examine how his time with the vaudevillian duo of June and Ida, on the rough road in search of performance venues, led him to experience the kind of life-affirming animation one cannot receive from literature. “Why do you read other than live?” Bob imagines strangers asking him—The Librarianist confronts this rather tricky, existential question on behalf of its protagonist and, by extension, his fellow-reading readers.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Ryan Asmussen
What was the impetus for this story? Was there, at least to some extent, already a Bob Comet, or did the character just arrive?
Patrick deWitt
Bob Comet is an invention, and it took some time before he arrived. In an earlier iteration of the novel, Bob was not the character you meet in The Librarianist, but a much wilder personality, a sort of post-Beat dreamer of unrealistically weird dreams, whose erratic behaviors precipitate his divorce from Connie. This story failed to deliver, or I failed to induce its delivery, but I kept the names and eras and locations and continued to dig and push and slowly, over a period of months, this other story came into focus.
Ryan Asmussen
The structure of the narrative is very fluid in its temporality. Why did you decide upon the way it’s set up now as opposed to, say, a more traditional linear, chronological path?
Patrick deWitt
I could make up something to say in answer to this, pretend I thought it all through and worked out the advantages of an eccentric timeline, but that’s not how my writing mind operates. The truth is that I just set the chapters and eras down in a way that felt commonsensible and pleasing. Obviously I was aware of the non-linear aspect of the story, but my decision not to alter this was less about aesthetics than the sense that the novel was revealing or announcing its form to me.
Ryan Asmussen
The character of Ethan is deeply important not only to the plot but to the character of Bob and his growth. Ethan is essentially a foil to Bob.
Patrick deWitt
Ethan and Bob are opposites, and their friendship exists as a mutual fascination society. Ethan looks up to Bob as a man devoted to the solitary study of literature; Bob is envious of Ethan’s visceral life experience. Bob’s relationship with Ethan ends badly, but the result of this is that Bob burrows more deeply into his own personality than he would have otherwise. Ethan’s legacy, then, beyond the pain he has introduced into Bob’s life, is to bring Bob closer to his true self, which is not so shabby a deal, when you weigh it all out.
Ryan Asmussen
The characters of June and Ida really take on a larger-than-life role in the novel’s final third; they’re very unlike anyone whom we’ve met so far. They could easily have a novel of their own. What was your envisioning of their role in the story, thematically?
Patrick deWitt
Because Bob’s childhood is a lonely and sometimes fraught one, I wanted him to experience comradeship; and in wondering what sort of people might recognize young Bob’s qualities, Ida and June came to mind. I could have gone on and on with that group, it’s true. Actually I did go on and on—I cut quite a lot of that story away in edits.
Ryan Asmussen
Where do you see this novel fitting in with your previous work? How much of a departure for you might it be?
Patrick deWitt
A book is informed by the circumstances under which it’s written, and The Librarianist was composed during a period of dependable not-happiness; because of this, the text is painted with a sense of melancholy that sets it apart from the rest of my work. Also, it seems to me that I’ve written a comparatively traditional novel—less fanciful, less volatile, perhaps truer or more plain in its emotional sentiments.
Ryan Asmussen
What, above all, is the most lasting idea about or impression of Bob you hope to leave in the reader’s mind? At the close of day, who is this man?
Patrick deWitt
Bob’s story was written as a hat-doff to the interior life, the life of the minor citizen, the small life of modest accomplishment and general stillness. I have no illusions that this novel will change anyone’s point of view; but maybe the occasional reader will recognize something of their experience in Bob, and feel connected or soothed. In the face of the shrill and hateful sound of humanity eating itself, let us remember to praise small stories, the fleeting moment of the unheroic individual.
FICTION
The Librarianist
by Patrick deWitt
Ecco Press
Published on July 4th, 2023
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