Like many who had direct experience of World War I, Helen Fox never really recovered from the trauma. Years after the war ended and the combatants went home, Helen is still holed up in Geneva, Switzerland. She lives a lonely life these days in the American Library. She receives books from deceased Americans who don’t have heirs, keeping them organized for anyone who might visit the library looking for something to read. She occasionally goes out for drinks with an Austrian baron who does his level best to retain the elegance of pre-war culture. And she tries very hard not to think about the American soldier she fell in love with during the war. But in the opening pages of Emily Dunlay’s emotional and gripping novel, The Library of Leaving, a message arrives at the American Library that indicates that Helen’s secrets are about to be exposed.
As soon as the chapter of a draft memoir arrives in Helen’s mail, she’s ready to do a runner. She contacts a friend at the American embassy with a story about a lost passport and makes plans to pack only the essentials before lighting out for Spain. Those plans are interrupted when Leo, Helen’s friend the baron, summons her to join a small party of visiting Americans. To Helen’s absolute shock, one of those Americans is August, the man she fell in love when when he was convalescing at a hotel-turned-hospital during the war. August is the author of the draft memoir, the one that threatens to blow up Helen’s life. If Helen’s past comes to light, there’s a good chance she’ll end up in prison.
It takes several chapters, plus excerpts from August’s memoir and the journal of an American who died in Switzerland under mysterious circumstances, for the secrets to begin to trickle out about Helen, August, and Leo. Not only do we get secrets, we also get a lush, emotional story of lost love and betrayal. The characters are so brilliantly, carefully drawn. You can feel Helen’s anxiety pouring off of the page as Dunlay unspools her story. Though she gives the impression of being calm and a bit jaded on the outside, underneath she’s as much an emotional mess as she was a young girl without means but very flexible morals who made some very bad decisions.
I don’t want to give away too much of what happens in The Library of Leaving because figuring out what’s going on and speculating about what might happen next is a big part of why I enjoyed this novel so much. I adore a twisty, turn-y yarn, especially when it’s anchored with amazing character development and set in a cinematically described landscape. Fellow readers, I inhaled this book. How would Helen get out of her current entanglement? Would she finally be punished for her past deeds? Was there still a possibility for love and forgiveness?
I plan to recommend this book widely, with a side recommendation that anyone who bites should cancel their plans for the weekend. I expect other readers to be just as hooked as I was.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.