The Thieves of Manhattan - By Adam Langer Page 0,16

the destruction of obscure libraries as well—those in Norwich, in Lynbrook, Long Island, and on the East Side of Manhattan at the Blom. Roth told me that the story of the Blom fire made all the New York papers and television stations.

An investigation was conducted, arson suspected but never confirmed; the fire could just as well have been caused by the library’s antiquated electrical system and generally shabby condition. What remained of the building was demolished, the ground was cleared; within a year, another building rose, condominiums, and soon there was no sign that the Blom Library had ever been there. There was no Girl in the Library anymore, no Hooligan Librarian, no Tale of Genji. Roth had witnessed an interesting beginning to a story, perhaps, but nothing more. That was the problem with trying to write about reality, Roth thought—the modern human condition, whatever that may have been, didn’t follow the arc of a good plot: characters appeared then drifted away; conflicts remained unresolved; imaginary love affairs stayed imaginary; even as dramatic an incident as a fire blazing through a strange old library was rendered banal or inconclusive in explanation. If anyone wanted to know who the Girl in the Library might have been, what might have happened to the Hooligan Librarian, if anyone wanted a more compelling story than an unexplained fire and a pile of rubble, ash, and blackened books cleared away to make room for condos, he’d have to invent a story.

“And that’s what I did,” Roth told me. “I made up a story.”

By now, I had finished my beer, and the 106 Bar was filling up. Couples were drinking pitchers, guys from the neighborhood were watching football on TV, hollering at the screen as they ate handfuls of wasabi peas from small wooden bowls, a jukebox played “People of the South Wind.” Roth had taken off his charcoal gray gatsby and hung it on the back of his chair. He was an especially good-looking man, I began to think, one who inspired confidence as much as he demonstrated it, who held within him the promise of success, the kind of man I wouldn’t have minded seeing myself become in fifteen years if I could figure out a way to clean myself up, keep myself fit, and make a pile of dough.

“Why’re you telling me all this?” I asked.

“Patience, Ian,” said Roth.

I was feeling buzzed from the Guinness, and I was no longer in any rush to leave the bar. I had nowhere else to go but home, and no one was waiting for me there. Roth asked if I wanted to hear about the story he wrote, and when I told him I did, that I was a sucker for stories, he handed me another twenty and told me to buy us a second round.

THE CONFIDENT MAN’S STORY, PART IV

Jed Roth started the novel A Thief in Manhattan as an original modern tale, but one that encompassed elements of classic adventures he loved—fights and chases, shoot-outs, a mysterious damsel in distress with a surprising secret. It began with a library much like the Blom, a hooligan librarian, a lovely, pale woman admiring The Tale of Genji, and a man at the next table wondering what it all might add up to.

It didn’t seem like much to build a story on, Roth thought, but Genji was the book that had invented novels, so it didn’t seem like a bad place to start. Roth tried to imagine himself back at the Blom Library, then asked himself, “What if?”

And maybe that was a good way to write a story, he thought—start with reality, take a vicious left turn, slam on the gas, never look back. Maybe all stories started with “What if?” What if the Girl in the Library’s interest in the Genji wasn’t some passing fancy but a long-held personal obsession; what if Roth’s interest in the Girl wasn’t an idle reverie but a deep passion, the sort of love at first sight he’d read about in novels but never truly experienced? What if the Hooligan wasn’t just a librarian but also a thief who was planning to steal The Tale of Genji? What if every time the Hooligan said a manuscript was out or “unavailable,” he had actually brought it to a crooked appraiser’s office and fenced it? What if Roth had seen the Hooligan Librarian pilfering valuable documents from the Blom, heard the man discussing the Genji, then decided he would steal that book for