The Little Library

March 19, 2018
Rote insult of the “no-doubt clichéd” romance genre comes early in Fielding’s story, so there’s hope that turnabout—or at least an ironic nod—will follow. But no; the irony here is that a protagonist who dumps on the predictability of his own genre is so tedious himself. Elliott Thompson is a 30-something gay academic who’s unemployable after a public brush with scandal. An unspecified “settlement” from the affair funds his house in Modesto and daily book purchases on Amazon, which soothe his anxiety but clutter his space. Thus the titular library, a box he puts on a post in the front yard, stocked with his surplus for others to take or swap. One visitor is convalescent cop Simon Odisho. Elliott, lurking, notes that Simon chooses gay histories and is emboldened to ask him out. Ninety pages in, they’ve had the date, and a glimmer of a coming-out plot has barely taken shape. Pacing does not improve from there. Simon’s teddy-bear charm isn’t enough to offset Elliott’s banal obsessions with how much he exercises, how much Simon eats, and whether that university in Nebraska really will call back. This sleepy story does nothing to excite or interest the reader.