I picked up this one from Book of the Month again, but it took months for me to get around to reading it.  Once I did, it took me another few days to get into it.  It’s not my normal style of book, and while I did look forward to understanding what it took for a black woman to exist in New York in the early 1900s, I struggled to get engaged.  Spoilers ahead.

Belle’s youth was spent between a mother who wanted what was best for her family, and a father who wanted what’s best for his race.  As you’d probably expect, those interests diverged, which meant Belle’s father left to pursue a better world for Black Americans.  Belle’s mother took her family, with a changed name, to New York, and taught them how to hide their true identities in order to survive in a violently racist society.  For Belle, that meant training to be a librarian, utilizing the instruction that she received on art history from her father prior to his departure, and her love of all things historical.  Through connections she has made at Princeton, she ends up with an interview with J.P. Morgan as his personal librarian.

Her anxiety about being found out as a Black woman is present throughout the book, but what’s interesting to me is how she modifies what her mother has taught her and her female siblings about ensuring they don’t stand out in order to find success in this role.

Over time, she proves herself adept at reading the moods of a volatile man, to the point where he trusts her to speak and act on his behalf to acquire all of the greatest historical treasures he could ever want for his collection.  How?  By standing out.  By making sure that the other dealers see her as a confident, competent art and artifact critic.  By flirting, negotiating, and strong arming her competition.  Exactly the opposite of what her mother would want her to do.

She’s not the kind of librarian I’m used to – the one that catalogs books and makes sure they’re where they’re supposed to be on the shelves, so that took a little getting used to.  That said, it was more interesting than I expected to hear how some of these things were done.  I enjoyed the interaction between Belle and the other dealers, and while the book didn’t go into a great amount of detail about the actual items she was acquiring, I didn’t miss it too much.

There could have been a bit more interest, a bit more intrigue, a bit more excitement, but overall, I enjoyed the book.  It was a nice book, and one I’m happy to have read.