Hassler, Jon. Grand Opening (New York: Ballantine, 1988) 326 p.

The library in the small Minnesota village of Plum is open only on Saturday when the part time librarian, Melva Heffernand, is relieved from her switchboard duties by her husband. "The library was a small, stuffy room with one window. Its holdings were a hundred books, a buffalo head, and a collection of janitorial supplies--brooms, dustpans, buckets of paint and detergent. A few books were laid out on a table beneath the buffalo head; the rest stood in two small bookcases flanking the window." (p. 68).

Melva is enthralled by a writer named Edward Hodge Fleet who writes stories about physical deformities. The library has collected all of his works, but neglected such authors as Hawthorne, Cather, and Galsworthy.

The library is only a very small part of this magnificent and moving novel.