The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
By Gabrielle Zevin
Published 2014
Read Dec 2025
It’s not clear to this reader how she chose to get this audiobook but she is glad she did. The only other Gabrielle Zevin book this reader has encountered is Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. In that book she used the story of three young people that develop and sell video games to give readers some insight into that industry and people who inhabit it. In this book she uses the story of a mismatched group of people to give readers some insight into independent bookstores and the publisher agents that sell them books.
While some have found this book to be too predictable and somewhat sappy, this reader does not share this opinion. Several characters must reset their lives after experiencing tragedy. Their reset is generally neither very pretty nor quick. The author does a good job of honestly showing their flaws and misguided steps.
When we meet A.J. Fikry, he is a 39-year-old widower who is mourning the loss of his wife, business partner, and love of his life, who perished in a car accident. He’s drinking himself to sleep each night and thinks that drinking himself to death may be a good path for him. He and his wife were both in literature PhD programs and not enjoying them when his wife suggests they open a bookstore in her hometown—Alice—which is on Alice Island, an island off the New England coast that is only reached by a ferry. During one night of mourning, while passed out from drink, Fikry’s beloved and very rare copy of Tamerlane, a book of early poetry by Edgar Allen Poe (the writer at the center of his unfinished PhD thesis) goes missing and thus his “nest egg” for retirement. He is well described as an often-surly book snob which doesn’t help his store’s bottom line. He is quite mean to the new publishing rep for Knightly Press after the previous rep died.
A major change in Fikry’s life happens when a two-year-old is left in his store with a note “please take care of her”. Her drowned mother is found washed up on Alice Island’s beach. The inconvenience of the required ferry trip for the social worker assigned to the case means the child spends a weekend with Fikry who decides to be her foster care provider. Yes, the reader needs to accept that this proposal actually flies, but so what—it’s a fictional novel!
Other significant characters include: 1) Chief Lambiase, divorced from his high school sweetheart who wasn’t actually a sweet person, who investigates the case of the drown woman and abandoned child; 2) Ismay, the sister of Fikry’s dead wife, a school teacher who is unhappily married to 3) Daniel Parish, a one-hit author; and 4) Amelia, the publisher’s book rep and a book lover.
Each chapter has a short note from A.J. about a book. We eventually learn these notes are for Maya, the little girl he eventually adopts. There are plenty of book references that book lovers will likely appreciate—recall this it the Storied Life of our protagonist.
This was certainly an enjoyable read. Amid the book references and story about a bookstore, a major theme is relationships and their importance in our lives. The relationships that the characters develop enable them to live richer lives than they had before and to get through past and present tragedies. This reader gives this book a recommendation TO READ!
PS The reader of the audiobook that this reader enjoyed was perfect for this book.
MarshaReads.com 