THE LIBRARY OF LEAVING

A twisty story of love, war, and secrets.

In the years after World War I, American-born Helen Fox lives in Geneva and works as a librarian for the American Legation, where one of her mundane tasks is to receive and maintain the books sent to the library when an American dies in Switzerland and their personal libraries are not claimed by heirs. Helen’s rather quiet existence in Geneva is disrupted by the anonymous delivery—not via the Legation—of the first chapter of a novel with characters and a plot echoing her own experiences in Switzerland years earlier, during her service as a librarian in a mountainside Swiss hotel housing injured British combatants and one attractive American who had volunteered his services before the U.S. joined the Great War. Helen realizes the author has the power to reveal the truth about her shadowy relationships and actions during the war, which would shatter the life she created for herself in its aftermath. Once Helen and the mysterious American author reconnect in Geneva, she has many decisions to make about how to proceed without disrupting the fragile equilibrium she’s built between past and present. Dunlay’s narrative follows a serpentine path through Helen’s life and war years through multiple perspectives: Helen’s own voice, the voice in the manuscript, and that of a diarist whose papers come into Helen’s possession in the American Legation’s library. (Oh, and communications from MI5 are included, too!) The novel spans decades and continents as it unravels the complicated course a life such as Helen’s can take while trying to save itself. Dunlay’s extensive research into the roles of various actors in WWI is evident, but an equally resonant theme relates to the power of books to sustain a life of meaning during hardship.

A carefully crafted historical puzzle.