Book Review: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
On Alice Island, off the coast of Massachusetts, there is a bookstore, Island Books. It isn’t doing so well right now. Owner A.J. Fikry was never the most sociable of people, and he’s gotten downright surly since the death of his wife Nic. Sales are down, the sales clerk is only not fired because it would take too much effort, and even reading is bringing no joy to Fikry’s heart.
So when it turns out that the one publisher’s representative Fikry could tolerate has died, and rookie rep Amelia manages to poke several of his sore spots at their first meeting, the bookstore owner explodes in anger.
Sick of himself and his life, A.J. Fikry gets blackout drunk that night. When he wakes up, he discovers evidence that someone else has been in his small apartment above the store, and the most monetarily valuable book, a rare first edition, has vanished. Fikry had hoped to sell the book and retire from the store.
Now more or less forced to stay in business, Fikry struggles along until a few months later he returns from a stroll to discover that a foundling has been left in his store. Two year old Maya’s mother is dead, and the father is completely unknown, so Fikry does the obvious thing and adopts her.
Raising a toddler is not something best done on one’s own, so Fikry finds himself reaching out to his community. Kind-hearted police chief Lambiase, long-suffering sister-in-law Ismay, her writer husband Daniel Parrish (whose first book is the only one people read), Amelia and the other people of Alice Island. Life will never be the same again. But there are a few more curveballs ahead!
This is a book for book clubs. Each chapter begins with A.J. Fikry recommending a short story to Maya that is somehow thematically relevant to the chapter. There are loads and loads of references to literary works of many kinds (and naturally Fikry has very strong opinions about them.) (A website is listed which explains all the references.) A love of books bonds the characters. There’s even (in the edition I read) a set of discussion questions in the back just for book clubs.
There are many clever bits; just about every interaction with Lambiase is a winner. I had fun spotting all the literary references. (While Silas Marner is namedropped, none of the characters seem to notice how similar that book’s adoption plotline is to this story.) I also appreciated the bit which suggests that a story doesn’t have to be factual to have truth in it.
Fikry has an “invisible disability”, seizures that disqualify him from driving, which comes up a few times and then becomes a major plot point towards the end. Both Fikry and Maya are mixed-race, and ethnic prejudice comes up a couple of times.
Content note: suicide.
The book is unabashedly sentimental, and digs deep into tearjerker territory by the end, while the mystery subplot just sort of fizzles in favor of a “fated outcome.” Some sections border on twee. If you’re not the sort of person who likes having heavy-handed manipulation of your emotions, this is not the best book for you.
Recommended primarily to book clubs, because boy howdy is this a book club book.
