It all started with a library book that smelled of fire.
He had many, many different versions of his whereabouts that day. He had to somehow project himself into the middle of this dramatic event.
"He had an almost compulsive need to spin yarns," Orlean says. Peak gave no fewer than seven alibis for where he was the day of the fire. Tall and blond, he aspired to be an actor - stage fright aside - and, as Orlean says, "He really captured that desire and that questing for being noticed." Investigators began to suspect arson, and focused their attention on a young man named Harry Peak. So for these librarians it was absolutely devastating to see the books destroyed." Many of them are books that can't be found anymore. Librarians carefully curate the materials in their departments, Orlean says: "They build the collections from their own interests and knowledge. They were grieving not only the physical loss, but years and years of work.
"The city hired a psychologist to meet with the librarians because they really were traumatized." "Many of them suffered terrible anxiety and depression over the idea that they were no longer serving their patrons," Orlean says. The fire led to a seven-year closure of the Central Library which was devastating for the employees. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. "It struck me as being a wonderful way of seeing why libraries feel like these big, collective brains - because they have the memories and stories of a whole culture inside them."Ĭlose overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Library Book Author Susan Orlean "A host of memories and stories and anecdotes that we store in our minds disappears when someone dies," she says. She says the fire reminded her of the proverb that when a person dies, it's as if a library has burned to the ground. Orlean uses the loss and lore of that fire to tell the living, everyday story of a great civic institution that is becoming, in a digital age, perhaps even more vital. A lot of firefighters who I interviewed said it was by far the most challenging, frightening fire that they've ever confronted in their careers." "It reached temperatures of 2,500 degrees. "The fire burned for seven hours," Orlean says. The Library Book tells the story of the 1986 fire that damaged or destroyed more than one million books in Los Angeles' Central Library. Susan Orlean's new book is like exploring the stacks of a library, where something unexpected and interesting can be discovered on every page. Susan Orlean tells the story of the fire in The Library Book.īen Martin/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images Smoke engulfs the Los Angeles Public Library on April 29, 1986.
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