Love, Death & Rare Books by Robert Hellenga
Love, Death & Rare Books (Delphinium Books) by Robert Hellenga deals indeed with all three subjects in its title, but at its heart is a love story, not just between two people, but between readers and books as well. There is a sense of longing and nostalgia for a time when a physical book was a treasure — before mass production and ebooks became the norm.
We feel this sense of treasure the most in a bookstore like Chas. Johnson & Son’s, particularly on its top floor where the rarest of its books reside. Gabe Johnson, the third-generation partner of the family-owned business, has fond memories of his Grandpa Chaz’s appreciation for old books. He approaches them like a connoisseur of fine wine, determining their age by smelling their spines.
RELATIONSHIPS BOUND AND UNBOUND BY BOOKS
While books form a strong bond between Gabe, his father and his grandfather, they are also fraught with loss. Too wild and spontaneous to be happy with a bookseller, Gabe’s mother leaves the family while her son is still a boy. “I want to live life, not read about it,” she says. As a naive child, he holds out hope she will return. When she does not, he compartmentalizes his grief and struggles to understand why.
Gabe finds love in many places, but his infatuation stays always with Olivia, a strong-headed woman so obsessed with not being a burden that she refuses to accept love. And yet, she is his intellectual soulmate, debating with him on the philosophies of Plato and Montagne and swapping quotes from the classics. Olivia has a love of poetry that Gabe finds enchanting, especially when she reads it aloud, as she becomes very theatrical, animated and passionate in those moments.
When Gabe’s turn comes to take over the store, the publishing industry has shifted with the coming of the internet, and Chicago’s economy is not on his side. With Olivia off living another life, if only for a while, Gabe decides to leave Chicago and old loves behind to live “the good life” and settles down at a lake house in St. Ann, Michigan — one previously owned by an old mobster.
As his quiet life gets more interesting, Gabe decides to use his book smarts to benefit his newfound community and reopens Chas. Johnson & Sons in his new location. Life takes another complex turn when Olivia reappears in his life, and Gabe rekindles his old love while rebuilding his old career.
In parallel with Gabe’s storyline, the book progresses through historical experience with the eyes of literature, touching on landmarks such as the 25th-anniversary celebration of George Orwell’s 1984 and providing us with an honest window into society as time inevitably presses on. The settings are vividly described and rooted in history. We follow Gabe from his teen years in the ‘70s, an era of casual sex and male “rights of passage,” through post-9/11 and the resulting fallout in larger cities like Chicago.
The novel also shines a spotlight on how the publishing industry has been rocked by online sellers like Amazon. It is an intimate look into why we still feel moved when we stand in a physical bookstore.
THE BEAUTY AND TRAGEDY OF BEING HUMAN AND FINITE
Love, Death & Rare Books is an essential addition to the contemporary fiction genre. Hellenga’s pacing and sentence structure are reminiscent of Alice Hoffman. He sows many seeds in episodic glances and snippets of life instances.
With the strong character voice of Gabe as the book’s narrator, the reader feels an immediate emotional connection. Ultimately Gabe just wants to feel loved. Yet the love interests explored throughout the book are not a progression from A to B as is expected in a typical genre romance. The story is an intricate dance around many loves, which lands true to real-life experience.
The way Hellenga addresses death is sobering and blunt. It is not a glorified kind of death where the reader feels as though there will be a light at the end of the tunnel. The conversation of death is grounded and visceral. He explores what it is to be the survivor after loved ones have gone on to another space. He delves into the mentality of not knowing what that space is. As in reality, there is no comfortable answer to “Death” in Hellenga’s novel. There is only a need to cope with it and to move forward.
The story as a whole is about many things. It’s about knowing what you want, not being allowed to have it, and wanting it anyway. It’s an analysis of the very tumult that is emotion. It’s about how life goes on, even when our personal world seems to stop. The story tugs at the heart, not with sentimentality or overwrought melodrama, but by forcing the reader to see we are all helplessly human and finite.
Love, Death & Rare Books addresses the futility of living as a human and the necessity of being one anyway. It will inspire your inner book collector. It will make you want to live life, be alive and find joy in experiencing the world as it is — present, past and future. Because, in this harsh but beautiful reality, there are no other options. Because life, indeed, does keep moving.
