Vancouver has a different kind of library — very different. You’ve probably never heard of it. It’s small and contains about 300 volumes bound in black, gray, blue or maroon. It’s a library housing unpublished manuscripts that commercial publishing won’t accept. One might consider this library a literary dead end. Or, more generously, a library merely awaiting patiently for the right reader.
Counter-culture author Richard Brautigan in his 1971 parody novel, “The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966,” conjured up a repository for unpublished manuscripts no one would read. His tale revolves around a hermit librarian who accepts manuscripts 24/7 regardless of their literary worth, even if written in crayon. The librarian considers each an example of “the unwanted, the lyrical and haunted volumes of American writing.” To prop up the books on the shelves, he uses mayonnaise jars as bookends.
Brautigan sprouted his idea when writers had few publishing options, just commercial or vanity presses. Today internet technology offers many noncommercial outlets — blogs, e-books and self-publishing — that make it easy for even the abstruse or eccentric writer to find a few readers’ eyes.
In 1990, professional photographer Todd Lockwood transformed Brautigan’s fictional library into a physical one in Burlington, Vt., where it operated until 1995. The library opened with a flurry of press articles. Lockwood made one change by making the books available to read. As the number of volumes grew, he made a second by devising a new classification, the Mayonnaise system, which has 13 categories, such as love, family, spirituality, adventure and a catch-all called “everything else.” Its classes are more elastic than the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress systems, and you might find a novel in any category.
