Newsletter – January 17, 2025
The Museum of Ordinary People – by Mike Gayle
I begin most mornings with a walk through the woods and last fall I decided to listen to Gayle’s book that I discovered on Chirp when it was on sale.
Since my book bears the title of The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles this title jumped out at me like a complete opposite from mine. An antithesis, if you will. For a few bucks I could download it and get a good look at the opposite end of the museum spectrum. I’m glad I did.
The narrator, Jess, has mixed feelings about disposing of an old set of encyclopedias her mother had bought her as a child. The process of clearing out her mother’s home after her death left her with new appreciation for possessions and their meanings to people who owned them.
Jess learns of The Museum of Ordinary People and decides to cart the box of books to the museum rather than send them off to the tip (what Brits call the dump). There she learns of an uncurated collection of items that had been donated over the years and suddenly a fire is lit within her. She had always aspired to work as a museum curator and asked the owner for permission to inventory these items, working after hours and on weekends to set up and open the museum to the public.
The novel includes a love story but I wouldn’t say the book should be called a romance. I’ve read thrillers, sf, and historical fiction with love stories and wouldn’t call them romances either. Women’s Fiction is fairly accurate but I’d rather refer to it as general fiction…with a love story. And the first person narration on the audiobook is charmingly performed by Whitney White who lends a sincere authenticity to Jess’ story.
There’s a kind of cozy mystery quality to the story with ordinary people experiencing a moment in time that alters their life perspectives. No murder needs to be solved, but there is an engagement to be broken (not a big spoiler), a mother’s illness and death to be processed, and a life to be rediscovered and lived. All in all, a rather good formula for a successful story.
The supporting cast of characters are well fleshed out and equally engaging, as are the side stories of items in the museum that have their own histories, including that set of encyclopedias that began the whole tale. Hitchcock would have called those books a MacGuffin—“an object, event, or character in a film or story that serves to set and keep the plot in motion despite usually lacking intrinsic importance” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary).
Unlike my story of the Shafer family and their adventures in MAMLA, these characters don’t take an elevator up to the clouds, nor adventure in the antediluvian era of Southern California, nor even step into a work of art, but I was wholly engaged with what would happen next and whether the Museum of Ordinary People would finally get the opening it deserved.
The novel also made me consider the many possessions that my parents left behind, especially the ordinary ones. Does the badly mangled book that my mother received from a beloved teacher, signed and dated inside the cover, have any value to me or my family? What about my Dad’s high school yearbook with one picture of him, and a love note from a girl who would be “thinking about him every day” next year? My older brother counseled me to be ruthless, but that was someone’s life. The Museum of Ordinary People brings those questions into meaningful focus.
You can learn more about Mike Gayle and his many books at mikegayle.co.uk. Oddly this novel is not included in his list of books but it’s easy to find on Amazon. I recommend it and plan to read more.
TTFN
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My middle grade novel, The Most Amazing Museum of Los Angeles, is available through The BookBaby Bookshop at https://store.bookbaby.com/book/the-most-amazing-museum-of-los-angeles
Eric Margerum 