{"id":130372,"date":"2018-10-25T13:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=130372"},"modified":"2018-10-25T13:17:53","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T17:17:53","slug":"the-library-fire-an-interview-with-susan-orlean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/25\/the-library-fire-an-interview-with-susan-orlean\/","title":{"rendered":"The Library Fire: An Interview with Susan Orlean"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susan Orlean<\/p><\/div>\n

Susan Orlean stood in a crowd facing the Los Angeles Central Library. We were supposed to meet in the rare books room, but as I was setting up and Orlean was arriving from her son\u2019s dentist appointment, somebody pulled the fire alarm. At the LA Central branch, fire alarms trigger deep memory. On April 29, 1986, this dignified and eccentric building in the center of downtown burned for over seven hours. Four hundred thousand books were destroyed. Hundreds of thousands more were damaged, by the fire and by the water used to fight it. Orlean, the author of <\/em>The Orchid Thief\u00a0and\u00a0<\/i>Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend\u00a0and a <\/em>New Yorker staff writer since 1992, learned about the fire when a librarian lifted a book to his nose, inhaled, and said, \u201cYou can still smell the smoke in some of them.\u201d Then she found Harry Peak, the \u201cditzy\u201d out-of-work actor who confessed to some friends that he had started the fire. His story, and that of the 1986 fire\u2014the largest library fire in American history\u2014makes up one of the central threads in Orlean\u2019s newest work, <\/em>The Library Book.<\/em><\/p>\n

Orlean had already been interested in how modern libraries function, with their complex networks of departments and branches, but the 1986 fire gave her book a center. From that year, she moved forward into the present day, and back to the nineteenth-century origins of the LA Public Library, providing an alternative history of a city known more for movies than for books. The library also became a portal into Orlean\u2019s personal history. The book is dedicated to her son\u2014her future\u2014and to her mother\u2014her past\u2014who first brought Orlean to the Bertram Woods branch of the Shaker Heights Public Library, outside Cleveland, when Orlean was a young girl, and who died during the writing of this book.<\/em><\/p>\n

After a few minutes out in the sun, Orlean and I decided to cross West Fifth\u00a0Street to a Starbucks. It was Yom Kippur, and Orlean was, as she later tweeted, \u201cfasting except for coffee. I know that\u2019s technically cheating but believe me you would not want me without coffee.\u201d By the time we got our drinks and settled into a spot in the Starbucks courtyard, the fire department had arrived, and a PR person from the library texted that it was safe to reenter the building. This interview was conducted in the rare books room, with a brief follow-up over email.<\/em><\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

A very eventful way to begin an interview.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

If one knows you only through your writing, it seems like this kind of thing happens to you all the time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I feel it a lot where I think, Whoa, how auspicious. This is amazing. Do you know that E.\u2009B. White quote, something like, \u201cYou have to be prepared to be lucky\u201d? I think that writers have to be hyperattuned to eventfulness, and notice it more, and make something of it.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

It also feels as though you have a sense that, no matter the subject, if you dig a little, there\u2019s going to be an interesting history behind it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

Right. Before I knew about the fire, I had been sort of toying with the idea of writing a book about libraries. My guess is that there would have been something interesting in the history of whatever library I chose. This was especially dramatic. It\u2019s not just that there was a fire, it was the biggest fire. In addition, the backstory was unusually interesting, and that\u2019s partly because of the nature of California. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an accident that I\u2019ve written two books now that are set\u00a0primarily in California, and one book that was set in Florida. These are places where people go to reinvent themselves.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When you discovered Harry Peak, did he remind you of John Laroche, from The Orchid Thief<\/em>? Or Lee Duncan, from Rin Tin Tin<\/em>?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

Yeah. He\u2019s a fabulist. He\u2019s an inventor of self. There\u2019s a genre of people that are yarn spinners about who they are and what their world is, and he falls into that very neatly. In his case, I think he blundered more. Laroche had a little more savvy about taking care of himself. Harry was a lot more vulnerable and got himself in bigger trouble. But I guess I\u2019m fascinated by people who create their persona, and who write their stories in living color.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Do you relate to that instinct, to spin yarns and make your own identity?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I think that while I don\u2019t make an identity for myself that\u2019s grander and more dramatic than reality, the desire to write your story is a pretty human impulse. Writing about Harry, I\u2019m sort of wagging my finger, Oh, he wanted attention, and he wanted to be at the center of big events, and I think, Well, okay, who else does that? Hmm.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

What did you think when you found out he had died in 1991? He didn\u2019t write a memoir. As a writer, did you fear for the project?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I was shocked, because he wasn\u2019t very old. My first thought was, That\u2019s a huge obstacle to writing the book. I would have loved to have met him and heard his version of the story, but the thing about nonfiction is, you\u2019re handed a set of puzzle pieces, and that\u2019s reality. Sadly, he came of age as a gay man at a moment when AIDS<\/small> was an absolute death sentence. That he died of AIDS<\/small>, when you look at the time line of when he lived, makes sense. But on a human level, it was kind of awful.<\/p>\n

\u00a0INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Did you feel, as you were writing, that you had to solve the case of how the fire started?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

There was a moment when not being able to solve it or come to a conclusion worried me\u2014and then suddenly it felt completely natural. Life is full of uncertainty. The purpose of the book was not singularly to resolve the question of who set the fire but to examine everything surrounding this incident three-dimensionally. This isn\u2019t unlike being asked whether it ruined The Orchid Thief<\/em> that I never saw a ghost orchid. It was sort of the same thing, where I thought, Well, that was never really what it was about. It was about the pursuit, and not seeing it almost seemed more appropriate than seeing it.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Harry\u2019s sister said that he was grinning when he came out of jail, and that made him look guilty. It reminded me of the Amanda Knox case. She was making out with her boyfriend right outside the crime scene, as the body was being discovered by the police, and this played a big part in her trial. We take people\u2019s reactions as proof.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

Harry was a guy who sees a camera, he sees ten photographers, and he can\u2019t help but give his best side and his best smile, instead of being a little bit more canny and thinking he should look as if he\u2019s suffered in jail. He just didn\u2019t get it. And yet that guilelessness is what made him not an evil person but someone you wanted to take under your arm. You wanted to say, Harry, let me tell you a little bit about the way the world works. Play the part of being the wronged person, as opposed to looking handsome.<\/p>\n

\u00a0INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Is there an element of performance in getting people to open up and tell you their stories?<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

Reporting is performance in the sense that you have to be able to read the room. You have to bridge the difference between you and the person you\u2019re interviewing so they\u2019re not overly distracted by the perception of you being a stranger, being a reporter, being the person with the power in the dynamic. You have to make yourself quiet and small, in a sense. And receptive. I think people have an extremely finely tuned sense of whether you\u2019re just checking a box or really listening. I had no idea what Harry\u2019s sister was going to say. I was completely fascinated. And I\u2019m not judgmental. Whatever she had to say was valuable to me. The performance part of it is that it\u2019s not enough just to be open, you have to make sure that they feel that you\u2019re open. You have to have genuine interest.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When reporting, you\u2019ve gotten to know people in all these different communities. Are past subjects constantly reaching out to you?<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re working on a book, or even a piece for a magazine, there\u2019s an intense connection. It may be brief, but it\u2019s deep. But I think people generally understand on a very elemental level that a relationship with a reporter is real but circumstantial. I have very warm feelings toward all the people I\u2019ve written about, and I\u2019m often curious about what\u2019s become of them, but it\u2019s rare that they misperceive. Now, it\u2019ll be different with the library, because I have more in common with the people who work in the library than I had with people I\u2019ve written about in other stories, and I\u2019m more likely to see them. I think for the first time it feels to me like, wow, I\u2019ve written about a lot of stuff. Not that I feel that I\u2019m so super antiquated, it\u2019s just that I\u2019ve been writing for a long time, and I never write about the same thing twice. Unlike somebody who covers a beat, where they may keep going back to the same people, I go from one sort of silo to another. So I know people who invent umbrellas, I know people who are origami masters, and I know librarians, and I know orchid thieves.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Did you write this book at your treadmill desk<\/a>?\u00a0How many steps do you rack up on a book like this?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I did work on my treadmill for most of the book. I walked around six thousand steps on a typical day. Times five days a week. Times two and a half years \u2026 I\u2019ll leave the math to you!<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

That comes to 3.9 million steps. Wow. Were there specific books on your desk while you were writing that you turned to as models, or for inspiration?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I always have a certain pile of books that never changes. I have to replace all of them at some point because they\u2019ve gotten completely decrepit. Joan Didion, The White Album<\/em>. Ian Frazier, Great Plains.<\/em> Giving Good Weight<\/em>, John McPhee. And then two collections, one called The Literary Journalist<\/em>, one called Literary Journalism<\/em>. I wanted to find a book that could be my structural model, and I didn\u2019t find one. Certainly Great Plains<\/em> moves between history and present day a lot, and I would look at that often, but there was nothing that had these three time lines, of deep history, then an event in 1986, then the present day. I didn\u2019t find anything.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

How did you come to that structure?<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

From the beginning, I knew I couldn\u2019t tell the story of the fire without telling the history of the library. In 1986, the library was in great flux, and it wouldn\u2019t make sense to tell you that it was embattled and decrepit unless I told you the history first. Plus the history was so interesting. And then I thought, there\u2019s this third story to tell: What\u2019s the day-to-day life of a big-city library? I knew a strictly chronological time line was never an option. That would be a buzzkill, the first line of the book being, \u201cIn 1886, a group of people in LA \u2026\u201d I worried about braiding, which was really what I ended up doing. But I thought, let me just try it and let me see whether you can follow each time line independently, and they can illuminate one another. I had a giant board and I pinned up my note cards\u2014the big index cards that are, I think, five by seven\u2014with this proposed structure of moving among the three different time lines, and suddenly it felt very natural. As long as each thread in and of itself had integrity and was clear, you could move among them. This is probably the most complexly structured book that I\u2019ve done. It\u2019s interesting: I read a lot of books where the time frames are fractured. I think that the writer has to have a very firm hand on your back, saying, Okay, now come here with me. And now, Okay, let\u2019s go back here to Charles Lummis, and, Oh, you know, let\u2019s take a little break here and go visit an abandoned library. I think the writer has to feel very much in control. It\u2019s a matter of confidence, to think, Okay, yeah, I\u2019m in charge. I\u2019m the tour guide.<\/p>\n

\u00a0INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

One thing that I thought was very moving is the library fire as a metaphor for dementia, and the fact that your mother suffered from that disease and passed away while you were writing the book.<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

When I came across the Senegalese idiom, that when someone dies, their library burns down, I put it into my phone. I would look at it all the time, because I thought, The analogue of a brain and a library is precise, it\u2019s exact. Libraries are our collective brain. I really saw that with my mom, losing these volumes of stories, losing the organization of that information. I would have loved for her to have seen this book come out. Losing her was like a slow-motion loss, which was very painful. I remember thinking that it would be unimaginable that your parent wouldn\u2019t recognize you. When it happens, you feel like the unimaginable has happened. And even though, if she were still alive, showing her the book wouldn\u2019t have meant what it would have meant previously, I wanted her to see it, and hold it.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

Jews are called \u201cpeople of the book.\u201d Today is, coincidentally, Yom Kippur, and the saying associated with the holiday is \u201cMay you be sealed in the book of life.\u201d Did you feel a particular connection to your own Judaism, writing this book about books, and books being burned?<\/p>\n

\u00a0ORLEAN<\/p>\n

I thought this was a very Jewish book, actually. Jews fetishize books in a way that I find kind of adorable. I mean, you\u2019re not allowed to have any sort of images of god, and yet you take a Torah and you put on the most beautiful kind of silver cladding, and you kiss it, and if it is worn out, you make a casket, and you bury it and have a funeral. I didn\u2019t feel that I needed to hit you over the head with that, but I do feel like some of my feelings about books probably comes out of a culture in which books are considered precious. It\u2019s part of this idea of books having a soul. And I don\u2019t think that\u2019s peculiar to Jews, but I do think it\u2019s particularly acutely felt by Jews. When you look at the long history of book burnings, that sadly illustrates how all people acknowledge that books are something special. I love that Milton quote, that a book has the \u201cpotency of life.\u201d I\u2019m not somebody who thinks of myself as being super spiritual or supernaturally minded in any way, but it was weird to burn a paperback copy of Fahrenheit 451. <\/em>I could go buy another one in one second, but it still felt like such a taboo that I really had trouble doing it. The technology of books has changed so much. They\u2019re not a laborious work that requires somebody hand-setting type and printing\u2014it isn\u2019t related to that at all. I don\u2019t think that we see it as any less disturbing to burn a book even when they\u2019re easy to produce.<\/p>\n

INTERVIEWER<\/p>\n

When I read your descriptions of the books burning, they\u2019re so vivid and sensual. You sound almost like a pyromaniac.<\/p>\n

ORLEAN<\/p>\n

Well, I mean, fire is beautiful. And it\u2019s weirdly animate. I wrote the description of the fire here, as if it were an animal prowling the building. The way it consumed so much, it was almost as if it was the voracious creature, kind of stalking through the building and fighting actively against the effort to control it. It was a lot of fun to write those descriptions, I have to admit. But I\u2019m not a pyromaniac. Though I do like a nice fireplace.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Brent Katz is a writer and musician. His writing has appeared in\u00a0<\/i>The New Yorker,\u00a0<\/i>McSweeney\u2019s,<\/em>\u00a0and other publications.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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