Book Review: The Personal Librarian

Synopsis:

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene was hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library in New York City.

Belle became a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helped build a world-class, renowned collection.

But Belle had a secret that she protected at all costs. She was born Belle Marion Greener. She was the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle’s complexion wasn’t dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage. Her complexion was dark because she was African American. And she passed as white.

Remarkably, Belle became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true.

And until now, few knew the true story of the extraordinary woman who became famous for her intellect, style, and wit. Or the lengths to which she went to protect her family and her legacy — to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lived.

Review:

Marie Benedict is the author of five works of historical fiction, The Other Einstein, Carnegie’s Maid, The Only Woman in the Room, Lady Clementine, and The Mystery of Mrs. Christie. She says her “mission is to excavate from the past the most important, complex and fascinating women of history and bring them into the light of present-day where we can finally perceive the breadth of their contributions as well as the insights they bring to modern day issues.” Before pursuing her dream of writing, Benedict spent ten years as a commercial litigator in New York City, a profession in which she was “terribly unhappy. I knew I wasn’t engaged in my life’s purpose, and the Pierpont Morgan Library became one of my refuges during those dark days.” She learned about Belle da Costa Greene from a docent. The discovery provided her a “new lens” through which she saw the library, “its collection, the time in which it was created, and much, much more.”

Benedict relates that Belle literally “haunted” her for decades. Learning about her history caused Benedict to wonder, “What must it have been like to be Belle de Costa Greene?” She wanted to write about Belle, but “knew that it wasn’t right, proper or appropriate for me to try to envision what that must have been like.” As a white woman, Benedict acknowledged that she was incapable of perceiving what it was like to be an African American woman in the United States when slavery had been abolished but white supremacy, Jim Crow laws, and lynchings were escalating. Much less put herself in the place of a woman trying to pass as white as her own father worked to create a world where all people “could live freely while openly celebrating their heritage.” Indeed, Benedict felt strongly that “Belle deserved to have her story told by an African American author.”

Benedict hoped she had found a writing partner when she read Stand Your Ground by Victoria Christopher Murray. Eventually, Murray, who also left a decade-long career in the corporate world and was the author of more than thirty books, agreed to collaborate. The two women had just begun editing their manuscript when COVID-19 shut the world down. And then came a summer of protests following the murder of George Floyd. Benedict and Murray had candid, intimate conversations about race and the ongoing struggle for equality in America that changed not only the final version of The Personal Librarian, but both authors. Benedict says their friendship showed her how little she knew about the struggles of African Americans. “I realized how removed I had been, how protected by my own white privilege I really was. And how much I had to learn and how much i had to do.”

As for Murray, it took her some time to see that combining her talent as a contemporary writer with a historical fiction author was, in fact, “a fit.” She too became fascinated by Belle’s story, but for different reasons. Her own grandmother shared tales about “occasionally passing out of necessity or to make life easier.” So she felt that she “knew Belle from my own familial experiences.” Unlike Benedict, Murray “could imagine how every day, once she walked outside of her doors, she had to put on an award-winning performance, but then, at night when she returned home, took off her ‘costume,’ and laid her head down, she was still Black.” Still, she Murray didn’t believe Belle’s story could be told completely without a white woman “because she lived as white.”

Happily, once Murray and Benedict connected, they were soon “finishing each other’s sentences.” Still, like Benedict, Murray could not have foreseen that “as a disease threatened our bodies and civil unrest challenged our souls Marie and I would bond far beyond the experience of writing together.” As they researched, wrote, and edited, they “created a safe space” in which to talk about “the history of Black America, the history of white America, and the hope that one day these two Americas would converge into one.”

The result of their partnership is a seamlessly related and meticulously crafted fictionalized account of the life of a woman who presented one identity to the world while hiding her true self because she “didn’t want the color of her skin to be used as a weapon against her, an excuse to keep her relegated to the lowest jobs, the worst neighborhoods, with little possibility for a better life.” The Personal Librarian is a poignant, engrossing, timely and timeless story about the lengths to which one woman would go in order to rise above the constraints society placed on her and her family.

Belle’s story is told via a first-person narrative, making it powerful and impactful. Benedict and Murray meticulously researched their subject but Belle was, of necessity and purposefully, intensely private. Based on the information available to them, Benedict and Murray have believably imagined and crafted conversations, as well as Belle’s inner dialogue as she navigates the world. Belle was determined to succeed in a world designed to hold her back. Clever, calculating, witty, and beautiful, Belle was adept at using all of her assets to her advantage. She had to be. Because everything was at stake. And not just for her, but for her entire family because she supported them financially, enabling them to move to increasingly more comfortable apartments as Morgan generously increased her salary when she successfully procured the pieces he desired and elevated the library’s stature.

I accepted my mother’s decision as if it were my own and I became the white woman known as Belle da Costa Greene.

Belle’s father was not only the first Black graduate of Harvard University. He was also an activist, a contemporary of Frederick Douglass, Charles Sumner, and Booker T. Washington, known for his oration. But Belle’s mother “saw the writing on the wall.” When politicians began dismantling Reconstruction, her father lost his job as the first Black professor at the integrated University of South Carolina and the school was converted to a whites-only private men’s college. She explains to Belle, “Your father and I lived through a brief, fleeting time in history when equality might have been possible.” But the “lofty postwar ideal of integration” evaporated, the world comprised only of “black and white, two races separated, but certainly not equally.” She recognized what Belle’s father refused to: “Our only hope would be to live as white.” And so they did.

But when Belle’s mother reported to a 1905 census worker that the family was white, her father was infuriated to the breaking point and left. “Once she made the decision that they were going to live as white, she changed their names, she told them how they had to behave and, from the age of sixteen on, Belle was walking the footsteps her mother laid out for her,” explains Murray. Indeed, throughout the book, Belle is “walking a tightrope” and struggling to reconcile her guilt with her ambition. She “felt that she was betraying her father but also helping black people.” Belle secretly knew that her achievements were, in fact, the achievements of a a woman but, more particularly, a Black woman. Even if the world did not. Yet.

Belle was a woman compiling a vast and priceless collection of rare books, manuscripts, and art, an unparalleled accomplishment. She traveled abroad and skillfully negotiated to purchase artifacts she deemed necessary to elevate the library to unmatched esteem. But she did so in the employ of J. P. Morgan (1837-1913), a man of vast wealth and power who financed railroads and helped organize U.S. Steel, General Electric, and other major corporations. He was demanding and unforgiving, an anti-Semite who reminded Belle that she was his personal librarian, sometimes treating her like she was yet another of his possessions. Or worse, in Belle’s mind, a slave. They disagreed and quarreled, but she strove to avoid angering or embarrassing him, aware that he would fire her instantly were her secret revealed, bringing ruin upon her entire family. Belle revered him and he was drawn to her — based on their research, Benedict and Murray suggest a sexual tension between them. He came to consider her the most important person in his life, providing generously for her in his will.

Benedict and Murray effectively portray the evolution of their complex relationship, as well as Belle’s interactions with Morgan’s mistresses and children, especially his daughter Anne. Unmarried, Anne was rumored to be in a “Boston marriage,” a euphemism for wealthy women who chose to eschew marriage to live independently and, perhaps, enjoy an intimate relationship. Their fractious encounters cause Belle concern, especially when Anne makes references to her “people,” and questions her background, snidely telling Belle, “I though I heard something about your family having tropical roots.” Belle shrewdly leverages the rumors about Anne to her advantage and relates the story that Belle’s mother devised about Belle’s grandmother hailing from Portugal to explain Belle’s olive skin tone. It appeases Anne for a time, as it does others who inquires.

Belle never married, but she did have a decades-long relationship with Bernard Berenson, an expert on Renaissance-era art, which is explored in depth. It is both a heartbreaking and empowering aspect of Belle’s life, as depicted by the authors. As a young woman, Belle was forced to accept that marriage and motherhood would not be in her future. She says, “I’ve always known that, because of my heritage, a traditional relationship would not be possible for me … because a marriage means children, and that is something I cannot hazard. Without the fairer skin of my siblings, I could never risk bearing a child whose skin color might reveal my deception.” But Belle wanted to experience love and romance, and in Benedict and Murray’s telling of the story, although she had other lovers, she gets the opportunity to feel loved through Berenson, a man in an unconventional marriage with other secrets of his own. Like her relationship with Morgan, Belle’s affair with Berenson changes her profoundly.

How did Belle manage to pass for so many years, her secret never revealed? Murray believes that she would certainly never be able to pull it off today. But in the Gilded Age “to white people she looked white, but to black people, she looked black because of their features.” As part of her deception, Belle was taught by her mother never to make eye contact with African Americans employed in service positions. There are times in the story, however, when Belle knows she has been seen by waiters and others, although they do not give her away. After one such encounter, Belle wonders, “Why does she serve while I am served? Why is it that the relative whiteness of my skin has given me this chance at privilege? It seems incomprehensible, but it is thus.” Such details included in the narrative illustrate the complicated life Belle led — always calculating, looking over her shoulder, and devising plausible explanations, constantly afraid that someone who knew the truth about her and her family would reveal it.

Of all of her accomplishments, the one that mattered most to Belle was making two men proud of her — Morgan and her father — for very different reasons. Her father’s departure from the family impacted Belle deeply because of their close relationship and his tutelage about art and other subjects. Eventually, because of her notoriety, Belle dares not be seen with him in New York, so she is not able to personally show him her life’s work. She knows his words are true: “Changing your name is easy. Changing your soul is impossible.” She dreams of reinventing herself yet again and ponders coming forward with the truth in order to serve as an example to other Black people. But she never did.

The Personal Librarian is Belle’s story, told in a compelling, engrossing, and richly moving manner that provides insight into and appreciation for Belle’s triumphs, as well as sacrifices, as she strove to achieve her goals in the only way possible to her at the time. As he father tells her in a conversation imagined by Benedict and Murray, “One day, Belle, we will be able to reach back through the decades and claim you as one of our own. Your accomplishments will be part of history, they’ll show doubtful white people what colored can do. Until that time, live your life proudly.”

Benedict and Murray hope that readers, especially book club members, will reach out to each other and use the book to launch conversations about race in a way that feels safe.

Excerpt from The Personal Librarian

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one electronic copy of The Personal Librarian free of charge from the author via Net Galley. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own. This disclosure complies with 16 Code of Federal Regulations, Part 255, Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.