Three women’s stories start in three different decades and merge eventually in a super satisfying piece of historical fiction about strong women who make their way in Montana. in 1914, Collette is part rough and tumble, part self-educated and pro-union. Her father, who is raising Collette is a miner, self educated and a strong union man. Their home is filled with books and his brain is filled with whole plays of Shakespeare and the many authors he loves and shares with Collette. Being a union man is highly risky in a company town owned by “The Company.” The Anaconda Mining Company keeps its workers under its thumb, along with various politicians. When tragedy befalls Colette, she takes off on her own and we follow her story through the book, thereafter.
The novel alternates among the stories, but generally in a linear way, so while you are jumping decades and finding out things about each of them in the various decades, the chapters devoted to Collette, Alice and Millie follow a continuous time line. In 1924, Mayor Monroe of Missoula Montana is heavily invested in the Company and involved in various bootlegging and other questionable enterprises, but Alice is only dimly aware/suspicious of his doings. Alice is his daughter, a young woman who is a local librarian. With the help of her childhood friend Mac, now employed by her father to carry out a variety of work, including keeping an eye on Alice, she brings books by motor car to nearby mining towns. Mayor Monroe is very controlling and protective of Alice. An old schoolmate, who she views as too wild and his reputation too notorious dips in and out of her life in Missoula. Sidney Walker comes from wealth and he is a gambler, heavy drinker and always, always teases Alice when he runs into her. His mother is a social power in town.
When Alice thinks of the idea of fitting out a boxcar as a lending library, and starts to fundraise with the moneyed company and townspeople, Sidney’s mother steps in to thwart the plan. She believes it is dangerous to let “those people” experience the power of words. In a surprising twist, Alice calls checkmate on Mrs. Walker and her plan goes forward, along with the hire of an unusual choice for the person who would serve as the boxcar librarian. The first two men to interview just didn’t get Alice’s vision. The boxcar will be hitched to trains that run through mining towns and we get to follow the boxcar and its librarian in many sweet and scary encounters and adventures.
And then there is Millie, an orphan from Texas, raised by her aunt and uncle as a combination older sister and minder of their rambunctious boys. In 1936, she is working for the Work Progress Agency (WPA) Federal Writers Project in a component that oversees a state by state guidebook project. Writers, photographer, editors, typists and interviewers travel about their assigned state to interview people in urban and remote areas and put together a a book meant to attract visitors. Millie, an editor in Washington, DC is sent to Missoula Montana to address a serious issue with Montana’s project. Thus, the office staff initially views her as the enemy.
These women are phenomenal characters with rich stories and very different motherless backgrounds. All are book lovers, independent for their times and just interesting. So are the various support characters, the setting and the cultural and political stories of each of their initial eras: Montana’s union battles are notorious and well represented in The Boxcar Librarian. Prohibition plays a role as well. The depression and the ups and downs of the New Deal and the WPA is a rich part of this story. Each woman learns more about poverty, if not personally than through their exposure to people in need. Each learns more about corruption in government and about the despotic nature of powerful corporations that rule with iron fists. So, for me, the rather progressive nature of the book was most welcome. It does not so much lecture as lull one into sympathy. This is a well researched and beautifully written book. One of my few “couldn’t put it down,” new to me authors.
They Called me Bookworm 