The Personal Librarian

 The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

This is a fictional account of the remarkable true story of Bella da Costa Greene, who served as personal librarian to financier J. P. Morgan for many years and was instrumental in the creation of the Pierpont Morgan Library.

Bella rose to a position of prominence in society and among the elite of art dealers and collectors worldwide, all while having to hide her true identity. She was a black woman who in that day would not have held such a prestigious job or been admitted to those circles, but she, her mother, and siblings were all fair-skinned enough to pass as white, and so she was welcomed among them. 

Bella's father was a well-known, outspoken advocate for equal rights, but Bella's mother wanted her children to have the opportunities and acceptance denied her own people, and once she separated from her husband, she chose for them to live as a white family. Bella had a brilliant career, but had to be constantly on her guard in what she said and who she was seen with to avoid anyone finding out who she really was. 

I've been looking forward to reading about Bella and her career since I first heard of her several years ago but, sadly, this was not the book I expected it to be. The writing felt contrived and self-conscious, like it was trying too hard to be good. 

"Show, don't tell" was lacking here. Bella would tell us how she felt about something or someone, instead of letting us get close enough to her to see it in her behavior. I wanted to know her better as a human being, get into her head a bit, but she remained distant, just a character on a page, and not very likeable at that. She was a bit full of herself, referring often to how high she'd risen, her fame as librarian extraordinaire, her skill, her prowess, etc. It got tedious; it would have been much more effective to let the reader discern those things from the story instead.

It's clear that the author has done her research, but it was presented awkwardly. Rather than weave it into the story, it came in little info dumps like this one: 

"I explain to Mama that in the late 1400s, an English merchant and diplomat named William Caxton used a new printing technology invented by Johannes Gutenberg 20 years prior to make the first English language books. After all, I point out, Caxton not only made available a larger range of texts to English speakers, but unified the English language. His books are important for not only historic and literary significance, but also linguistic."  It sounds more like a page from a textbook than a talk with Mama.

Much of the dialogue felt stilted, said for effect but not adding to the story or allowing us to know the characters better. 

What I did like was learning about J.P. Morgan's incredible library and the art/manuscript collecting world, the auctions and wheeling and dealing that occurs behind the scenes. But most eye-opening for me was Bella's family life and what it was like for them having to hide who they were all those years. That's something I'd like to learn more about.   

Fascinating woman and situation, but I didn't like the writing.