Review: The Midnight Library
- cepmurphywrites
- 9 hours ago
- 5 min read
By Gary Oswald.
Literary genres are a funny thing. On the one hand they are essentially advertising, 'did you like this book? Well, it's a fantasy book and here are 200 more fantasy books, you'll like them too, please buy them'. On the other hand, it's kind of a reader's guide, telling you, the consumer, what to expect and how to engage with the text. I will react differently to the introduction of a dark handsome neighbour in a romance book versus in a crime book. I will analyse his character through different lens and that warning will help me roll with what the book is trying to do.
But not all books can be fit that neatly into genres and sometimes genre as advertising can clash with genre as readers’ guide. There is a long history of authors being annoyed by their advertising, because it does them no good to have their books given to an audience who doesn't appreciate it. If you go into Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, a fantasy book about wizards in 19th century England, expecting another Harry Potter (which marketing tried to link the book to), you're probably going to bounce off what is actually much more in the style of Charles Dickens than JK Rowling.
Young Adult as a genre is often criticised for this, it's a useful branding for sales but includes books doing entirely different things. Which is true for any genre that is primarily about the set dressing, such as fantasy, Western etc. There are Western books which are about romances and Western books that are about crimes and so the introduction of a dark handsome stranger in a Western book I am reading is one I have not been primed to react in any particular way. Without that expectation, I might struggle to get into the romance, because I have been viewing him with suspicion rather than wanting to be charmed by him, or feel deeply betrayed when he turned out to actually be a murderer. Or just immediately close the book and give it one star, because I was expecting The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and I instead got Brokeback Mountain.
Which brings us, inevitably, to alternate history and the struggle that seems to make up so much of the articles on this blog. What are we looking for from this genre and what do we include in that genre so that readers going from one piece to another find things that satisfy and that they have been trained to engage with in the expected way and not things that put them off?
When I interviewed Lena Worwood she said that: “There's a reason Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston hasn't generated much attention in the community despite being a best seller - and I think part of it is that we aren't primed to see an LGBT Romance novel written by a woman as legitimate AH. We need to do better, and expand what this genre can be.”
Though should we expand the genre definition? I read romance novels and Red, White, and Royal Blue (a romance book about the son of the US President dating a British prince) is recommended heavily to people who want to read a gay romance, and those readers generally enjoy it. But would a reader who enjoys political AH on this forum, show the same appreciation for it if that was recommended as a book to read if you liked Man in the High Castle instead? Possibly not.
How useful is it to draw up a list of recommendations that includes For Want of a Nail, a faux history book about a US where they lost the war of independence; American Royals, a romantic comedy about the 21st century Washington Princesses dating adventures in a world where George becomes the King of America; and How Few Remain, a military fiction about an alternate war in 19th century North America between the CSA and the USA? These are three books that do entirely different things, and the fact they all have in common an alternate political set up in North America doesn't change that.
Is reading all books with an alternate political set up in North America any different than reading a list of books that all mention Zanzibar, or all feature iguanas as pets or have a main character named Francis? You can do that, and you might have fun, but you won't get a list of books that all have the same appeal and which you have been trained to read in a certain way.
And I say all that to say that Matt Haig's The Midnight Library is possibly the best AH novel that I've read in years. But it wouldn't make my list of AH novels to recommend because its appeal to me is different from that of the genre.
I like AH that is about cultures and about societies and how they can change and grow in different ways thanks to different events. This is not a book that does that. I like AH that highlights real history and points to how things we take for granted weren't always true. This is also not a book that does that.
It is not a book interested in history or politics or cultures at all. It is a very personal book about a single woman's life.
Depressed and miserable over how her life has turned out, Nora attempts suicide and wakes up in a library filled with all her regrets. From that nexus she gains the ability to move into hundreds of other lives that she could have led, ones where she didn't drop out of certain jobs, didn't break up from certain relationships, didn't stop pursuing her dreams. And, as I think is quite predictable which is why I'm not hesitating to reveal it, by doing so, by living the might-have-beens, she learns to appreciate the reasons why she made those choices and appreciate that her own life was not without bright spots and potential until she wants to live again.
You can criticise this book for an overly simplistic view of mental health, perhaps. But, as someone who has struggled with depression, I found it a genuinely beautiful touching read and one that brought me to tears at certain points. One that does something fascinating with the sliding doors parallel lives concept and uses that AH concept to say things about life and how to live. It is certainly a book I will reread regularly and a book I will not hesitate to recommend to anyone.
But it's a book I read because my friend picked it for a book club we are part of. Not because it won the Sidewise or was reviewed here. And there's good reasons for that.
The reasons I loved this book are not the same reasons I love Bearfish or Axis of Andes or Everfair. I can't really ever say if you liked them, you'll like this. It's not doing the same thing, it's not trying to hit the same notes.
But I liked this a lot, nonetheless.
Gary Oswald is the editor of the Grapeshot and Guillotines, Emerald Isles, and If We'd Just Got That Penalty anthologies.