By Freya Sampson
Berkley 2021
329 pages Fiction
The Last Chance Library is almost a polemic
disguised as fiction. It tells the story of June, a young assistant librarian, who is
faced with the closing of the community library where she has worked for the
last ten years, taking her mother’s job following her mother’s death. Books and
the library patrons have become her entire life, filling the void her mother’s
death created. She knows books so well that she is able to help the patrons
find exactly the right books at the right time.
And oh the patrons! So many of them spend their days with
June and have come to be her best—albeit—only friends. There is Stanley, an
elderly man who spends every day in the library; Jackson, a home-schooled
8-year-old that June helps learn to read; Mrs. B., who keeps reading books June recommends and
decrying them as “trash”; and Chantel, a teenager who is needing a quiet place
to do her schoolwork. June helps people log onto computers, and of course,
helps patrons find books to read.
The Council, however, has decided that the small community of
Chalcot doesn’t need a library, and the loyal patrons stage a coup in an
attempt to try to save the library. Because of her job in the library and
because of her reticent nature, June feels that she shouldn’t be part of the protests,
but in the end, her desire to keep this community intact causes her to enter
the protests and encourages nation-wide media coverage.
Although this is the basic plot, we are witnesses to June’s
coming alive in the emergence of this cause, facing her own need to expand her
life’s horizons. Of course, there is a bit of romance, some tragedy, some good
fortune, and a whole lot of growth—for June and for the community.
What I mean by The Last Chance Library being a
polemic is that the obvious goal of the author is to insist on the importance
of public libraries for the good of the community. Those of us who grew up in public libraries know this already, but
it was very much fun to read about a community coming alive to save the
library, which offers so much more than books.
Over the years, I have written frequently about the
importance of the library, both for me personally and for the sake of the
community. Here are a couple of entries from my blog—one about Andrew
Carnegie and the libraries he created, and then another by Susan Orlean
about the value of libraries with her narrative nonfiction, The
Library Book.
The Last Chance Library is Freya Sampson’s debut novel, although it appears she has a new book out, The Lost Ticket. Here is her website.
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