June 26, 2009

Book 30: Free for All

Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library
Don Borchert

The jacket of this book promises that it will be a wild ride, a tell-all memoir of sorts that will hilariously and tenderly convey the perks and perils of working in an underfunded, often overcrowded public library. Unfortunately, though there are amusing and touching anecdotes spread throughout this book, the vast bulk of this volume consists of snide, self-serving remarks with remarkably little perception or tolerance from someone who works at a public institution in Los Angeles, one of our country's most diverse areas by any measure. For an author, Borchert seems to be unrepentingly and unforgivably ignorant of the effects of his language on the reader. This book is full of moment after moment that should be touching or funny, only to be ruined by an ill-timed non-sequitur or blatantly ignorant remark about a patron or colleague's culture or race. And, for the record, hijab is not the same as a burka. That said, there are a few excellent moments in this chronicle of life as a public servant (a noble title Borchert reiterates every chapter or so), most notably an almost insult-free love story between two mentally challenged adults that manages to be written with subtlety, grace, and affection. Likewise, most of the stories about beloved children's librarian Terri shine with admiration, commiseration, and humor.

While there are a few stories that manage appropriate pacing and language, such as an early chapter about drug dealers working out of the library's bathroom, Borchert misses far more comic opportunities than he succeeds in delivering and the book suffers for it. Borchert is an author of extremes: he is either entirely off the mark, delivering punch lines before adequate (or any) set-up, or he is trying to force what he must see as witty cynicism into his dour remarks, throwing in an ill-timed "fuck" here or there to seem hip but making himself seem all the more tragically un-so. In fact, I would hate to be a patron of Mr. Borchert's library, and not because of the trying customers he faces. He seems to be stone-faced and, in trying to make himself seem understanding and polite comes off instead as a self-serving, crotchety jackass with no respect for others, a remarkable task for a librarian. Borchert has no sense of overall plotting as his stories are loose, unconnected, and hastily composed with no sense of story throughout. We are introduced to a librarian, Lillian, somewhere in the middle with no explanation of who she is or where her previous title-bearer had gone, only to get the patchy backstory in the final anecdote. Likewise, the "afterword" is really just a closing chapter to the book: readers will look at this and wonder if it saw any professional editorial attention at all.

I'm all for creating a stir and I'm no censor, but it seems unlikely that and editor looking for a book with mass-market appeal would allow Borchert's racist and offensive material to go through unscathed, particularly when it is either flat-out wrong (hijab is NOT a burka!), misleading, and usually entirely irrelevant to the story at hand. Aside from its horrendous styling, however, Free for All does have its moments. Many of its stories are funny, owing no thanks to the author's delivery, and uncover a bit of the shroud of mystery that hangs over library associates. Though civil servants are not the highest creatures on the employment totem pole, as this book would have us believe, Borchert does give readers an idea of the kinds of small and large annoyances that haunt the average branch librarian. Ultimately, though, Borchert's contempt for others and general inability to craft an interesting story overwhelm the power of the material. There are only a handful of passable chapters in this book, and two truly great ones: a moving ode to love, mentioned above, and a realistic, caustic, and shockingly witty look at the futility of summer reading programs. Free for All boldly attempts to take readers on a journey through the stacks, but gets lost in a dark, dank corridor of bad writing and fails to capture interest, unlike so many books Borchert has passed to the readers of Los Angeles who, thank god, seem to put up with him.

Grade: C-

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