The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

The Personal Librarian tells the story of Belle da Costa Greene, hired by J. P. Morgan to serve as the curator and librarian of his newly-constructed Pierpont Morgan Library. With impeccable taste, an innovative and savvy business sense, and a rich store of knowledge gained through study and research, Belle acquires valuable works for Morgan and his library, all the while becoming increasingly sophisticated, a darling of high society. Belle, working in a traditionally male setting where few women ventured in the late 1800s and early 1900s, has a myriad of challenges to overcome. Being female is difficult enough—groundbreaking, in fact. But Belle worries about keeping a deep secret that at any moment, with a slip of a tongue or a chance encounter, might be revealed: Belle is a black woman passing as white.

I became interested in this book when I heard that it was co-authored by Marie Benedict, who is white, and Victoria Christopher Murray, who is Black; my interest only increased when I learned that, working together, the two authors extensively researched the life of Belle da Costa Greene, born Belle Marion Greener. Digging into the novel, I found myself intrigued by Belle’s interesting family background, her complicated devotion to Morgan and her work at the library, her attempts to build meaningful relationships among people who had no idea of her true identity and might well shun her if they knew, destroying the precarious life she had made. The cost of Belle’s passing plays out from page to page, as do her fierce desires and triumphs. The Personal Librarian is an engaging novel that left me wishing I knew more about the life of this complex woman.