Review by Eleanor J. Bader

When Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian and head of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, spoke before the Livingston Parish Library Board in August 2022, she did so as a concerned community member. Her message was clear and direct: Diverse collections must include books that accurately address U.S. history and offer readers multiple ways to understand race, class, gender, sexuality, and sexual identity. The latter category, she said, is especially important for children, adolescents, and teens as they navigate coming of age.

Although Jones was not the only person to express this viewpoint, four days after she testified she found herself on the receiving end of a well-organized hate-and-harassment campaign coordinated by Citizens for a New Louisiana, a newly-formed conservative group that dubbed her a pornographer and menace to children.

That Librarian, part memoir, part impassioned political argument against censorship and book bans, is a deeply felt exposition of the physical and emotional toll these smears exacted and a strategic workbook about ways for communities to fight back. Moreover, it charts Jones’s personal transformation from a 2016 Trump supporter to become a forceful advocate for civil rights, civil liberties, and the right to read. It’s a powerful, angry, and inspiring book.

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That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones. Bloomsbury Publishing, August 2024 (pre-order available).

Reviewer bio: Eleanor J. Bader is a Brooklyn, NY-based journalist who writes about books and domestic social issues for Truthout, Rain Taxi, The Progressive, Ms. Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Indypendent.

Guest Post by Colm McKenna

Translated by Jennifer Croft, The Woman From Uruguay by Pedro Mairal follows Lucas Pereyra’s day trip from Buenos Aires to Montevideo, which is fuelled by two motives: to exchange a 15,000 dollar advance for his last book, and to spend some time with a young girl from a literary conference he is trying to bed.

The unpredictability of the Argentinian economy means that if Lucas were to take his advance in Buenos Aires, he would receive less than half of what he would get in Uruguay. Transporting money that way is illegal, though he really is between a rock and a hard place; dealing with Argentinian pesos is like “being paid in ice in the middle of the summer, and freezers are illegal.”

Anxiety abounds here, anxieties which are further fostered by an ambivalence towards his young son, and suspicions about his wife’s adultery. The story is dejected and hopeless, full of self-doubt and hatred. Hints of ambition filter through though, even if these are buried under familial and professional obligations.

An anti-hero in the truest sense, we are still somewhat drawn to Lucas due to his playful, vivid style, his biting social criticism, and most importantly the strength of his writerly ambitions, which unfortunately butt heads with the bleak reality of literary production, As one of his colleagues puts it, “books have to be written… then you decide how much they’re worth… you polish them like diamonds, and then you sell them like a string of sausages.”

Mairal’s protagonist is far from likable, but it would be unjust to make him so. This man, whose obligations towards his family and his career are at odds with his fundamental desire, holding him back from it; how can we expect him to come up smiling?

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The Woman From Uruguay by Pedro Mairal; translated by Jennifer Croft. Bloomsbury Publishing, October 2022.

Reviewer bio: Colm McKenna is a second-hand bookseller based in Paris. He has published and self-published an array of short stories and articles, hoping to eventually release a collection of stories. He is mainly interested in the works of John Cowper Powys, Claude Houghton, and a range of Latin American writers.