The Archivist: A Novel by Martha Cooley
Poetry can make a difference in a person's life. Just ask Matthias Lane or Roberta Spire, the main characters in The Archivist.

Matt is an archivist at Princeton University, guarding, among other things, a collection of letters between T.S. Eliot and Emily Lane, an American woman with whom the poet corresponded for years. Many scholars speculate these letters hold profound insights into his personality. But they are sealed until the year 2020. And just like his collection, Matt guards himself from the outside world, living a solitary life since the death of his wife many years ago.

Matt identifies strongly with Eliot because his wife, like Eliot's, was committed to an institution where she ultimately committed suicide. For three decades, Matt has refused to feel his pain, but a young graduate student finally forces him to look into his personal grief and guilt.

Roberta is the graduate student, who desperately wants to read these letters after learning a family secret that has disrupted her life. She is fascinated by Eliot's conversion to Anglicanism; obsessed with the concept of conversion because her own parents, Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, converted to Christianity before she was born and raised her as a Christian.  She just recently became aware of her Jewish heritage.  She is hoping the personal letters of her favorite poet can offer her some insight into her feelings of betrayal by her parents.

It seems Roberta will stop at nothing to see the letters, and Matt is determined not to let her. Yet, they form a friendship that is cathartic for both, and highlighted with a good dose of sexual tension.

Matt sees many similarities in Roberta and his late wife, and it forces him to re-live many moments with her. His wife was raised by family members who initially pretended to be her real parents, when in reality her parents were Communists who went to Europe during the War and were killed. Upon learning the truth, she became obsessed with the Holocaust.  She eventually sought help in a mental institution. A section of the novel consists of her journal entries from this period, culminating in her suicide.

As we follow the parallels in these two women's lives, the relationship between Matt & Roberta keeps us in suspense.  In the end, the relationship causes Matt to commit an act he wouldn't have thought possible before he met her.

Martha Cooley ambitiously takes on some weighty issues in this highly praised debut novel that draws heavily on Eliot's poetry. It is a compelling and complex storyline that delivers in the end.

About the Author: Martha Cooley lives in Brooklyn.  The Archivist is her first novel.
The Archivist: A Novel by Martha Cooley