The Midnight Library

Nora wants to die. She’s had enough. None of her dreams have come true

and all she can think of are the paths not taken and the good life she missed. Better to end it all and stop the misery. So she does, only to find herself in the Midnight Library, with its infinite volumes offering infinite alternate lives. All she has to do is the right one, the good one, the one she dreamed of. And she can have it.

The thing is though, she’d dreamed of a lot of good lives. She could have done this. She could have done that. She could have done so many wonderful things. Which was the best? Which was the one that now will really make her happy?

The film It’s a Wonderful Life offered its hero, George Bailey, one alternative existence. The Midnight Library offers Nora dozens. And what I love about this book is how deftly it sketches so many of them in, settling on just a moment or two to describe an entire life.

And if I say I could see the end coming from far away, that’s not intended as a criticism. I think it’s the book’s intention. You could do this, it says. You could do that. You could do so many wonderful things. Perhaps you already are.