“I want to find a book that will give me hope.”
Photo from City of Asylum in Pittsburgh
“I want to find a book that will give me hope.”
I’m rounding out my bi-monthly volunteer shift at my local Habitat ReStore, where I shelve books in the adjacent used bookstore/cafe. Those words stream quietly — and maybe even apologetically — from someone who, I could tell, has been treated very unkindly by this world.
“I need a book that will give hope to someone who lives on the street. Do you have anything like that?”
I feel like I’m in a Leif Enger novel, both due to the shockingly straightforward and slightly “spiritual” nature of her request … but also, I admit, because her presence unnerves me a bit. This is how it goes in his novels: Characters encounter someone who they aren’t quite sure how to interact with because they appear almost apparition-like, out of the blue.
I’ve written before that “hope” is often what gives a novel the required oomph, something that up-levels a story. I don’t mean “hope” in a happily-ever-after way; in fact, I mean in a way that allows a reader to wonder if the story really is over because it ends on a note of complexity instead of simplicity. Maybe people think I’m naïve or a bleeding heart? No. What I am is a hard-nosed realist.
Unfortunately, I’m a bit flummoxed by her request — especially since I’m not sure, at first, what she’s saying and if she’s talking to herself or to someone else or…me? She is in the Religion section on purpose (I assume?), so I point her to a devotional since I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want to read some esoteric novel. But I know the longshot odds of something so simplistic cracking the code of desperation. I grapple with how much to engage.
She thanks me and then she thumbs through the book at a table. And then my shift is over, so I wheel my cart to the back, grab my keys, and head out. As I enter my car, I see her traversing the parking lot of a catty-corner KFC.
I can’t stop thinking about her. And I wonder how much “hope” and “home” are intertwined.
“Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we’ll all get home safely.” — Deborah Levy, The Cost of Living (the second in her brilliant Living Autobiography series)
originally published on instagram