We start out our new Book Club year with The Personal Librarian. Lis and Jackie hosted our New Year's pajama party with breakfast/brunch foods continuing our tradition. We missed Barb, Janie, Tammy, Arnora and as always Lou, Darby and Terry.
Lis hosted our annual pajama party this year with brunch/breakfast foods. We had two casseroles and a quiche, sticky buns, scones, chicken sausage and fruit. We complemented our breakfast with Mimosas, Pomegranate Sangria, wines, coffee and tea.
The Personal Librarian is an historical fiction based on the true-life story of Belle de Costa Green, the personal librarian for the Pierpont Morgan Library beginning in 1905. She remained in the position after Mr. Morgan's death and was named its director in 1924. She retired from the position in 1948 just two years before her death having worked there for 45 years.
Morgan considered her a member of his family, much to the consternation of his daughter, Anne. He left her $50,000 in his will. A great sum of money for the day. She could have lived on it the rest of her life but continued to work for the museum at $10,000 a year.
The book follows the story of Belle Marion Greener, born to a black, but light skinned, couple. The Greener's had six children before their separation. Mrs. Greener insisted that their family pass as white for better financial and social opportunities. Mr. Greener was a staunch civil rights champion and was infuriated that his wife listed the family as white on a census record. He left the family and was appointed the first black ambassador to a white country, Russia. There he began a family with a Japanese woman and had three more children. He never divorced his first wife. He own father abandoned the family for the gold rush and never returned.
Belle's job as a librarian, first for Princeton, then for Mr. Morgan supported her family throughout the years. And, she was able to pull off the fabrication. All of the main characters in this book were leading double lives. Mr. Morgan, among other things, juggled as many as four mistresses at one time into his 70's. His daughter, Anne, was in a three-way affair with two women. Most people in their circle knew about it and the other "Boston Marriages" but looked the other way. Belle also has an affair with married art historian, Bernard Berenson. He was in an "open marriage" with his wife, who at one point begs Belle to take him back.
Belle's accomplishments as librarian and curator for the Morgan Library rivaled, if not outweighed, the accomplishments of her father. His resume is quite impressive. She is another brilliant, strong, independent, woman who was ahead of her time and whose story has not been widely known. She was also quite courageous as "passing" for white, if she'd been found out, could have gotten her and her family hanged at the time.
Belle's story was very interesting and sent several of us down the rabbit hole of searching out other historical facts about the time and the people. Everyone liked the book and rated it 4.66.
Leslie is hosting our February meeting and our book is "The Girl with Seven Names" by Hyeoneseo Lee.
UPDATE: Laura has sent the following comments and upgraded her rating.
"I know our ratings don't matter in the larger context of our world, lol. But, I am revising my rating of The Personal Librarian to a 5. I rated a 4 simply because the writing itself did not seem quite worthy of the highest rating. But, I have discussed this book with multiple people outside my book circle. It is a wonderful conversation starter and a wonderful example of why I love historical fiction so much. The story itself and the fact it was not revealed until 2007 are just amazing! The fact that we are interested enough to plan a trip to the big Apple is exciting beyond words!"
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