The Sorrow Proper

As a group of public librarians work to keep their library from closing, a couple mourns the accidental death of their daughter who was struck down in front of the library, and an unnamed photographer and his deaf mathematician lover each explore their grief over the other's death. Through their stories, debut novelist Drager exposes readers to Many Worlds, a theory within quantum mechanics which says that multiple realities or histories are capable of unfolding. The librarians wrestle with changes to their environment brought on by the end of print, attempting to implement any number of new services to hold off the inevitable. By way of their struggles, Drager investigates the nature and purpose of the library and more broadly the impact of change on a societal and individual basis. Her prose is elegant and simple yet still capable of prodding readers to contemplate the larger questions of our existence, and she excels at investing her characters, even the nameless ones, with intimacy.