The Midnight Library

Nora awakes in another life and immediately notices that she’s tired. She’s sleeping next to a man she hopes is Ash and, when he eventually stirs, happily confirms that it is in fact Ash. When she tiptoes from the room to investigate her new life, she runs into a frightened little girl: her daughter. The little girl is afraid of bears and wants Nora to comfort her. Nora doesn’t want to help the child initially because she feels guilty—this isn’t her life, so feelings and connections can complicate things—but Nora accompanies the child to the girl’s bedroom so that Ash doesn’t wake up. Her daughter asks what happens when people die, and Nora tells her that people can live different lives but that the child doesn’t have to worry about death. Nora nearly cries when the girl mentions that they go camping. Nora feels like this is a wholesome life, one she can enjoy if she allows herself to accept it. She then asks her daughter if she wants to play a game.

Nora puts the child back to bed and plays a game with her. The game involves the little girl confirming things she already knows, like her name and Ash’s occupation. The game is an attempt to settle the child, but it’s also meant to obtain information so that Nora can better understand this life. From the game, Nora learns that the child’s name is Molly and that they live in Cambridge. Ash is a doctor, and Nora is a philosophy professor on sabbatical. Moreover, Nora and her brother Joe are close in this life. Nora eventually falls asleep next to Molly.

Ash brings Nora a cup of coffee, and they talk about the day. Ash has several surgeries, and Nora will drop Molly at school and then return home to work. After dropping off Molly, Nora takes in the beauty of their home. They live comfortably, with expensive taste. Nora learns through emails that she is on sabbatical to write a book about Thoreau and modern-day environmentalism. They have books on highbrow subjects that include feminism, literature, and science. This life seems perfect to Nora.

Nora experiences happiness with Ash and Molly. She does routine things like play at the park with Molly and cook dinner with Ash. She has the occasional slipup, such as when she is rude to their neighbor because she doesn’t know the man. Ash chides her for forgetting, and he mentions that he’s worried about how much she seems to forget. For the most part, however, this life goes smoothly for Nora. The smoothness, however, is also a problem. Nora remembers that if she likes a life enough, she will stay in it, but this means that she should be forgetting about the Midnight Library. Since she still remembers her root life and the Midnight Library, she wonders what’s wrong. One night she tells Ash about parallel universes, and though he finds the concept interesting, he mentions that Nora makes him feel normal. Ash’s words recall a Thoreau quote about perception, and Nora accepts that Ash can only see her as the person he knows and not as the person she believes she is.

Nora, Ash, and Molly visit Joe and his husband, Ewan, in Hammersmith. They have a great evening eating dinner together. At one point Nora sees a bottle of wine from the Buena Vista Vineyard. She wonders if Eduardo is just as happy in this life as he was with her. Nora learns that Joe is abstaining from alcohol. She later asks Joe if she was hard to deal with when they were younger. Joe dismisses their fallout over the band as a non-issue, but Nora apologizes anyway. Joe then tells Nora that he, too, was at fault for treating her badly, an apology that Nora takes to heart. Joe once thought Nora made too much of her mental issues, but now that he has experienced them with Ewan, he understands the gravity of mental health. Despite Nora wanting to explain more to Joe, she realizes that, as with Ash earlier, Joe can only see and understand what he himself is willing to understand.

Nora’s forgetfulness continues to worry Ash. At one point she forgets he has asthma. At the same time, Nora begins remembering parts of this life that she didn’t know before, such as someone’s name or who they are in relation to her as a professor. One day, Molly falls off her tricycle, and Nora comforts the child. Nora begins feeling a shift insider her, something she tried to avoid when she first popped into this life: love. Nora now understands that her root life suffered from her perception of love: “She had loved no one, and no one had loved her back” (248). Now, in Cambridge with Molly and Ash, Nora feels how love affects her worldview. This change also causes Nora to fear this life because she doesn’t want to leave, but also because she feels like she is a fraud—she isn’t the Nora that made this life. While crying, Nora decides to visit Mrs. Elm.

Nora visits Oak Leaf Residential Care Home in the hopes of playing chess with Mrs. Elm. She sees Mr. Banerjee, her old neighbor, but he doesn’t know her. In this life, he couldn’t keep his house, and his son Dhavak placed him in this care home, where he is now lonely. Nora apologizes to the staff because she initially said she knew Mr. Banerjee, then asks about Mrs. Elm’s whereabouts. The staff informs Nora that Mrs. Elm died peacefully three weeks ago. Nora leaves, saddened.

Nora walks toward town. She passes Mr. Banerjee’s old home and considers what she did different in this life to make this outcome happen. She also sees Kerry-Anne, the woman who worked at the newsstand in her root life. Nora then sees a woman with a cat in her own apartment and feels a tingling sensation in her body. She remembers Mrs. Elm saying that people often forget the small things that can have a big impact.

When Nora reaches town, she sees the police arresting Leo—her former music pupil in her root life—and a friend. Nora tries intervening by saying that Leo is a good kid, but the police laugh her off and inform her that Leo had a weapon on him and that he has a record. Even Leo seems put off by Nora’s wild accusations of him loving music. Nora then realizes that, in this life, she never worked at String Theory. Therefore, she was not there when Leo’s mother inquired about music lessons and a keyboard to get Leo’s mind on something other than hanging out with a bad crowd. As Nora begins feeling the tingling sensation that often means she will fade away, she tries convincing herself that this life is a good one.

Nora passes by String Theory and sees the same note that appeared in the window when she and Dylan walked by in another life. Nora wasn’t around to help sell musical instruments and keep the business afloat. As Nora leaves town, she begins to see Bedford in a different light. When she was younger, she and Joe used to joke that Bedford was a prison. She now realizes that her perception of her surroundings has always been wrong. She also wishes she could have seen Mrs. Elm before she died. Nora tries confirming out loud that she likes this life, knowing deep down that she will leave this life soon.

Nora rushes home to find Ash and Molly outside. She says goodbye to Molly cryptically, knowing she’s about to fade away. When Molly asks if she can water the flowers, Ash says that the sky has already looked after the flowers by watering them. Nora takes comfort in knowing that another version of herself will look after Ash and Molly. While Ash starts talking about their evening plans, Nora fades away.

When Nora returns to the Midnight Library, Mrs. Elm is working feverishly at the computer. Nora implores Mrs. Elm to send her back to the life with Ash and Molly because she wants that life, but both Mrs. Elm and Nora know that something is wrong. Mrs. Elm reminds Nora that she can’t return to a life she has lived, and as she explains this, the computer falls apart. The ceiling, too, begins cracking and crumbling. Nora asks for a life like the one she just experienced, but Mrs. Elm says it’s no longer possible. Something in Nora’s root life is wrong. A spark ignites the books in the library, and everything catches on fire.

Nora and Mrs. Elm take shelter under a table. Nora says once more that the life with Ash was the one she wanted, but when Mrs. Elm instructs Nora to look at her watch, she sees that time is now moving. This indicates that the previous life wasn’t enough and that Nora is about to die in her root life. Mrs. Elm tells Nora that the events happening in the Midnight Library are a direct result of Nora trying to process her life and death. To save herself, she must flee the library. Nora admits that she doesn’t want to die, so Mrs. Elm instructs her to find a specific book before the Midnight Library collapses. When Nora still doesn’t understand, Mrs. Elm says, “It all makes sense. You came back here this time not because you wanted to die, but because you want to live” (266). The library is falling apart because Nora no longer needs it, but she must leave the library before it disappears.

Nora rushes toward the place where Mrs. Elm said she would find the book, but a large chunk of ceiling falls on her and pins her down. Nora looks around, consumed with failure. She will die here in the Midnight Library. The more she thinks about her root life, however, the more she realizes that it was a good life. The people she loves, like her brother and Izzy, are alive in that life, and she helped Leo stay out of trouble. The more Nora thinks about her root life, the more she sees that it had potential. It’s up to her to make something of the potential.

When Mrs. Elm encourages Nora by shouting for her not to give up, Nora courageously dislodges herself from the debris. She then finds that, to her surprise, the book she needs—the book containing her root life—is the only book not on fire. With a pen Mrs. Elm gave to her, she must write something in the book; she has opened it to find it completely blank. As the library crumbles and time continues, Nora finally writes, “I AM ALIVE” (271), and then the Midnight Library crumbles and disappears.

Nora wakes up after midnight back in her root life and throws up the contents of her stomach. She struggles out of bed and over to Mr. Banerjee’s house. She tells Mr. Banerjee that she’s done something stupid and asks him to call the police, and then she passes out. A stanza about the sky darkening although the stars still shine closes out the chapter.

The chapter opens with a quote from Sartre about life beginning “on the other side of despair” (275). Nora wakes up in the hospital. Her abdomen is sore, but she’s otherwise in the clear. When a nurse asks her questions about her suicide attempt, she admits that she doesn’t want to die anymore. She looks outside and cherishes the view of Bedford. Later, she deletes her suicidal posts on social media and replaces them with a note about her experiences.

Nora begins her new social media post with the following realization: “It is easy to mourn the lives we aren’t living” (277). Nora explains this revelation by saying that regret can be dangerous. People hold on to regret despite not knowing how these imagined lives might turn out. What is known is the life one is living, which means the best course is to live the best life possible. Furthermore, one can understand the feelings one might experience in another life without living it. For instance, one doesn’t have to hear every single song in the world for music to move one’s soul. Likewise, says Nora, one doesn’t have to play every game in existence to know how it feels when one wins at something. Nora implores people to choose kindness and admits that she felt her life was meaningless the day before. She now realizes that her life won’t be free from pain or suffering, but she wants to live and experience all that life offers.

Joe visits Nora in the hospital. They apologize to each other for being unkind to one another. Joe admits that he’s stopped drinking and is now going to the gym. He also tells Nora that leaving the band and leaving life are two very different things: He needs her to stay alive. Later, Nora receives a text from Izzy with humpback whale pictures. Izzy mentions that she is going to move back to Bedford and that she misses Nora. This message, along with her chat with Joe, confirms for Nora that things can change if one waits long enough to experience change.

When Nora leaves the hospital, she and Joe take an Uber ride home. Joe mentions that he might work freelance in Hammersmith and that he met a doctor named Ewan. Nora encourages her brother to take the freelancing gig and to reach out to this Dr. Ewan Langford. When they reach her place, Joe, shocked, shows her a picture of Ewan and asks how she knew his last name. Nora brushes it off as sibling intuition. She then sees Mr. Banerjee smiling in the window and thanks him for helping to save her life. She looks at his flowers and relishes how life-affirming they are.

Nora sizes up her belongings and cherishes the life she almost gave up on. She feels gratitude for being alive, and she determines to embrace life on her terms rather than trying to live solely for other people. As she contemplates next steps, Doreen (Leo’s mother) calls and asks to restart Leo’s lessons. After the conversation, Nora plays some music on her piano, then notices an issue of National Geographic that Joe gave her. The magazine has a writeup about the Krakatoa volcano. Nora likens life to a volcano. Though volcanoes are destructive, they also allow for growth when the lava cools.

Nora visits Mrs. Elm at Oak Leaf Care Home. Mrs. Elm looks older and tired, but she’s excited to see Nora again. Nora plans to visit regularly so that they can play chess, a proposition that delights Mrs. Elm. As they play, Nora sees Dylan and the bullmastiff outside the window. Mrs. Elm admits that her days can be lonely; she sometimes feels like the game is over, especially because she wasn’t so kind to others before entering the care home. Nora reminds Mrs. Elm that she was kind to Nora when Nora needed it most. Mrs. Elm thanks Nora but says that Nora was always special. The chapter ends with Mrs. Elm affirming that one never knows how the game will end.