The Librarianist | Patrick DeWitt

This book immediately checked two boxes -- a version of the word "library" in the title and a local author. It's a quirky book. I can't remember if I read French Exit, one of DeWitt's other books, so I don't have much to compare it to. The main character is Bob, a retired librarian, who discovers a very confused woman at his local convenience store and walks her back to the senior housing facility where she lives. The book is quiet (Bob's an introvert) and draws a fully illustrated picture of an ordinary life and an ordinary (but lonely whether he realizes it or not) man. The story unfolds slowly. Backstory is teased in the beginning and is provided fully in the middle, before wrapping up at the end. It's a talky-talky book, in that there's a lot of dialogue or dialogue-like passages. There's definitely humor of the dry variety and uses a lot of vocabulary not tossed about every day. I enjoyed it, although the backstory did get just a wee bit long in the midsection, and the ending was very satisfying. I just saw a stage production of The Importance of Being Earnest and the talky-ness of the book reminded me of that, although it didn't have the sharp wit or broader humor of Oscar Wilde. It made me want to read more DeWitt to see whether I agree with other reviewers, some of whom thought Bob wasn't as interesting as other characters in other books.