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Author James Klise makes unexpected discovery in used books

My friend Ellen, a school administrator, called to ask for help. One of her libraries on the South Side needed organizing. It needed a plan. "Can you spare a day?" she asked.

I work as a school librarian. Like most of my tribe, I'm hardwired for sorting, trained to make order from chaos. I couldn't refuse Ellen's request, because as we all know, it's kind of fun — and a lot easier — to sort out someone else's mess. Ellen added that old books made up much of the collection.


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I groaned. Donated books, abused copies, unappealing old paperbacks — these make an educator's work even more challenging. A big part of any librarian's job is keeping the collection fresh, relevant and fun. When books no longer fit this description, they need to go. "You called the right guy," I said to Ellen.

I grew up in a house full of readers, but we didn't own many books. Instead, each week, we drove to the public library just off Main Street in Peoria. We were able to borrow 10 books each. In doing so, my five sisters and I effectively kept the lion's share of the library collection at our house. Then when I was 10, our father got sick. Cancer choked his voice and invaded his lungs. My parents spent months in hospital rooms, reading mysteries by Rex Stout and Ross MacDonald. After Dad died, library books became even more essential for all of us: an escape from a world that no longer included the smart, funny family hero.

Thirty years later, on a blustery October morning, I drove across the city and met Ellen at the school. The library was filled with books — many thousands — in cardboard boxes, in plastic grocery bags and milk crates, some piled on tables and on the linoleum floor. A swamp of unsorted, damaged, outdated books.

The work went quickly. It was easy to spot the few usable books, the ones we would place into the hands of students.

One book stopped me, mostly because it looked so very ancient. A small volume with a dark green cover, deeply wrinkled, as if salvaged from a shipwreck. The title said "Cicero de Senectute." Publication date: 1895. I opened the cover and found a comic pencil drawing: a man who looked like Humphrey Bogart, smoking, with a hand resting in the pocket of his dapper jacket. Amused, I examined the ornate bookplate: "EX LIBRIS Name: Tom Klise, St. Ambrose College, Davenport, Iowa."

I blinked and stared. This weird little book had belonged to my father in the 1940s.

The bookplate offered printed reminders:

I promise to

— keep it clean

— refrain from marking it up

— keep from tearing or rolling page corners ...

Above where it said, "This is my pledge," my father had penciled the words, "This is not!"

I flipped through the pages, seeing Latin passages translated by his blue fountain pen.

I bet every child who loses a parent shares this fantasy: You walk into a strange room, and here is the parent you thought you buried, alive. Here was my father now, on the illustrated pages of that odd book in that strange room.

I showed the book to Ellen, whose jaw practically fell to the floor. "Things here," she whispered, "are not as disorderly as they appear." In the same pile, I found another book with my father's name in it.

By the end of the day, I collected 13 of his college books. Theology and philosophy, some in Latin. The spines were fragile, the pages brown and brittle. No teenager would ever reach for these copies. I put them in a box and took them home.

That night, I emailed my family to tell this story. We marveled and speculated but found no complete answers to the basic questions: Where were these books between Iowa in the 1940s and Chicago today? What chain of events delivered them into my hands? What were the odds I would be called to help organize the library where they sat waiting?

For weeks, I kept the books piled next to my bed, intending to read them. To me, their appearance signified that my father was still with us, unseen but present — still here, despite all the less extraordinary evidence to the contrary. I'd spent years sifting through all the tangible evidence he once truly existed: photographs, old clothes, letters. After a while, however, any archive becomes familiar, stale — quite lifeless.

If we're very lucky, every now and then, new evidence may appear. Evidence that can surprise us, even make us laugh, as we "see" the person anew.

I haven't read those old books yet. I may never read them. They have this stubborn mildew smell. I can't read Latin. All the same, it would be hard to let them go.

James Klise's most recent novel is "The Art of Secrets." He lives in Chicago.

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