What I Learned from The Library Book by Susan Orlean

To Use a Modular Structure or Not to Use a Modular Structure, That Is the Question​

The Library Book by Susan Orlean is an ode to libraries, a celebration of libraries past and present. Although the center of the story is the 1986 fire that destroyed the Los Angeles Central Library building and many of the materials it contained, it is not a linear, chronological narrative about the fire nor is it a chronological narrative about the investigation of Harry Peak, who was suspected of setting the fire. Orlean’s structure is similar to the modular short story or the segmented collage and braided essay found in many personal essays.  These structures don’t create unified pieces through chronology or a line of argument. Instead, short sections on different topics are carefully placed so that the juxtaposition of various topics deepens and broadens each as well as the theme. Sections and chapters in The Library Book shift between three topics:  
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• The 1986 fire that destroyed the Los Angeles Central Library and the arson investigation of the primary suspect, Harry Peak. This is the spine of the book that readers follow and that unifies all the various topics Orlean explores.

 

• The history of the Los Angeles Library System from its founding to the fire, which provides essential context for the fire. Orleans deepens and broadens this history through brief bios of the many city librarians.

 

• An in-depth portrayal of the many different materials housed in the library, the diverse characteristics of the patrons, and the many different roles of librarians as changes in society necessitated changes in the services provided.

 
These topics emerged from a series of questions Orleans found herself asking after interviewing the librarians and firefighters who were at the library on the day of the fire. In an interview with Don Vaughan of Writer's Digest, Orlean details her thinking process:

​All right, I’m learning about the fire. How did we get to this point? What was the library’s status in 1986 that made it ripe for this kind of event? And then I stepped back again. Now I realize I have to go to the very beginning. How and when was this library founded, and how did it end up in a situation where it had a building that was in disrepair, that had been the center of all this civic debate for so long about whether to get rid of it or not? It’s almost as if I took this super-focused center, which was the day of the fire, and kept radiating out from this incident further and further. So it was a series of concentric circles in the reporting.
 
Then I had this additional kind of overarching curiosity, which is, what is it like to be in the library day to day? So I made a very long list of all of the departments at the library that I was curious about . . .  I was really reporting the book in a series of concentric circles with this day-to-day life of the library arc kind of over it like a rainbow, basically. 

Using the Modular Structure Can Confuse Readers​

The modular structure of the book that emerged from Orlean’s research; however, was problematic for some readers.  Reviews by readers on websites such as Amazon praised Orlean’s book because it provided a deep understanding of the history of the library, the day-to-day activities of librarians at the Los Angeles Central Library, and the contributions of libraries to their communities past and present. Readers enjoyed the deep dive into these topics because they discovered behind-the-scenes information about libraries they had never known. Whether readers enjoyed the book, giving it the highest ratings, or disliked the book, giving it the lowest ratings, they found the book confusing and disjointed at times. I’ve summarized the most frequent issues readers identified below:
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• The book jumped from topic to topic.

 

• There were too many topics and stories: The LA library fire, the history of the LA Library system, mini-biographies about the city librarians, and the investigation into the cause of the fire.

 

• The beginning focused on the fire and Harry Peak, who was suspected of setting the fire. This created the expectation that the book would be about the arson investigation and determining if Harry Peak or someone else was the culprit who set the fire. Readers were disappointed because near the end of the book, Orlean reveals that the arson investigation relied on techniques not supported by forensic science. There was significant doubt about whether or not Harry set the fire, and a major expert on arson concluded that it was impossible to know who or what was to blame given the deterioration of the building and the many fire code violations cited before the fire.

 
I believe some readers found these aspects of the book problematic because they weren’t familiar with how modular, collage, and braided structures are read and interpreted. Although readers were at times confused by the book's modular structure, the book became a national bestseller, in part because of the number of people who are still book lovers and frequent library visitors. Given the comments of readers, writers need to understand that they cannot just assemble interesting information in a patchwork quilt without careful thought and an understanding of when and why a
structure like the one used by Orlean for The Library Book is effective. 

When to Use the Modular Structure

In Writing True: The Art and Craft of Creative Nonfiction, authors Sondra Perl and Mimi Schwartz provide an understanding of when and why to deploy a modular, segmented structure:

• The plot moves too slowly to be chronological.
• There is too much detail to organize the narrative chronologically.
• The vision for the piece is to capture the writer’s mind at work.
• The writer’s goal is to explore multiple perspectives, capturing the same experience from different angles so the reader gains a more differentiated and complex picture.
• The writer wants to place their personal story in a cultural context.
• The writer wants to compare experiences of then and now.
• The writer wants to examine relationships rather than events.

 
Notice how many of the reasons to deploy the modular structure apply to The Library Book: comparing past and present, placing the story of the Los Angeles Central Library in a historical and cultural context, exploring multiple aspects of libraries in the past and present to offer a complex understanding of their importance, and a large amount of detail to convey these aspects of libraries. Chronological structures, sequential lines of argument building to a main point, and storytelling structures with exposition, rising action, a climax, resolution, and denouement are time-honored and effective ways to structure a nonfiction book. But if you are frequently finding yourself stalled when using these structures, consider taking a step back. Evaluate your research against the reasons to use a modular structure detailed by Perl and Schwartz. If a modular structure seems to be the best fit, read as many essays and books as possible to understand how to effectively use this structure. And be sure that there is a large number of readers who will be as passionate about your topic as the readers of The Library Book.