THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner, 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Comet’s straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob’s experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsized players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert’s condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.
THE INSTANT #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER
Winner, 2024 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour
From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.
Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he’s known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.
Behind Bob Comet’s straight-man façade is the story of an unhappy child’s runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian’s vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob’s experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsized players to welcome onto the stage of his life.
With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert’s condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Jul 4, 2023 |
| Specifications | 352 pages | 6 in x 9 in |
| Keywords | art and aging; retirement home; the guardian of amsterdam street; full catastrophe; meira cook; age of creativity; emily urquhart; canadian literature; creative writing; translation; |
|
Supporting Resources
(select item to download) |
Excerpt |
| Written By |
PATRICK DEWITT is the author of the novels French Exit (an international bestseller and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), The Sisters Brothers (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Leacock Medal for Humour, and a finalist for the Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon. |
| Written By |
|
PATRICK DEWITT is the author of the novels French Exit (an international bestseller and a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize), The Sisters Brothers (winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Fiction, the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Leacock Medal for Humour, and a finalist for the Booker Prize and the Scotiabank Giller Prize), and the critically acclaimed Undermajordomo Minor and Ablutions. Born in British Columbia, he now resides in Portland, Oregon. |
Winner, Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour, 2024
Commended, CBC 2023 Best Canadian Fiction, 2023
"Bob Comet, a retired librarian … brings to mind John Williams’ Stoner and Thoreau’s chestnut about ‘lives of quiet desperation,’ but it is telling that deWitt chooses to capture him at times when his life takes a turn. A quietly effective and moving character study." — Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW
” —Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW"Gripping, random, and totally alive." — Booklist, STARRED REVIEW
” —Booklist, STARRED REVIEW"deWitt’s writing and endearing characters create a memorable world." — Los Angeles Times
” —"deWitt is one of the great literary ventriloquists, producing funny, quirky, richly imagined novels shaped each time by a wildly different narrative voice." — Daily Mail
” —Bookpage"A character study of almost defiant gentleness." — The Times
” —Willamette Week"Personal and existential ... deWitt cobbles together a complicated but heartfelt treatise on introversion and the value of a life lived through books ... [The Librarianist] never strays far from what makes his novels so delightful: his dexterity with language, his interest in what happens when words fail, and the rare moments where they land." — Walrus
” —Minneapolis Star Tribune"Utterly charming … Characters come alive immediately on the page and there’s simply an energy to deWitt’s books that make them pleasurable to spend time with." — Chicago Tribune
” —The Daily Telegraph"deWitt’s great gift lies in his ability to depict the Everyman in extremis – heroism hidden in plain sight." — The Daily Telegraph
” —Big Issue"The Librarianist is a novel that’s interested in happiness … There are elements to be savoured in the nuance of particulars on the page." — Zoomer Magazine
” —Los Angeles Times"A bittersweet tale of a retired librarian … deWitt imbues the people he meets with color and quirks, leaving a trail of sparks … This one gradually takes hold until it won’t let go." — Publishers Weekly
” —British Columbia Review"deWitt’s great achievement is in creating, perhaps for the first time, a character whose very ordinariness is his defining feature … The aching heart of The Librarianist is a piercing seriocomic character study of isolation and abandonment." — Toronto Star
” —Zoomer Magazine"The Librarianist is another charmer from an author who knows how to delight." — Bookpage
” —Toronto Star"A page-turner… an entertaining menagerie of strange characters and numerous apt and evocative phrases. And the divergent possibilities in the novel’s ambiguous ending scene give readers two very different stories to ponder after the final word." — Willamette Week
” —The Times"Bright and entertaining from beginning to end." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
” —Daily Mail"A touching, affectionate novel showing, without cliché or agenda, that engagement in old age is a courageous act to be applauded." — Big Issue
” —Booklist"deWitt is at his best writing dramatic and comedic scenes … He’s a writer who plays with the conventions of the realist novel." — British Columbia Review
” —Winnipeg Free Press"This novel begs to be read." — Booklist
” —Chicago Tribune"Filled with profound heartbreak and humour … After just a few pages of acclimatization to his style, we’re immersed in deWitt’s world." —Winnipeg Free Press
” —Walrus"DeWitt is a fabulous stylist and unquestionably gifted storyteller … The Librarianist stands out most when [he] explores the depths of human relationships and traces the evolutionary development of one man for whom fellow humans have led to unplanned disappointments." — Canadian Notes and Queries
” —I've Read This BlogDeWitt is a fabulous stylist and unquestionably gifted storyteller … The Librarianist stands out most when [he] explores the depths of human relationships and traces the evolutionary development of one man for whom fellow humans have led to unplanned disappointments.
” —Canadian Notes and Queries