Painful passages

A year after eloping with his sweetheart, Jacob Hampton leaves his hometown to serve in the Korean War. Back in the states, Naomi, his young, expectant wife, faces the town’s scorn because of their scandalous marriage. Only Blackburn Gant, Jacob’s childhood best friend and the cemetery custodian, treats Naomi with compassion. But Jacob’s spiteful parents hope to get their son back and keep Naomi away permanently.

Ron Rash’s The Caretaker (Doubleday 2023) takes up where Shakespeare left off in a story about Romeo-and-Juliet-type characters getting married. The Hamptons lost Jacob’s younger sisters to illness, and they go to insane lengths to keep their Jacob. They aren’t monsters, but they are misguided by ideas of what they deserve. Imbued with colorful details and told with casual writing, the story reveals profound truths about idolatry.

Consistent with the time period, only a few characters use mild swear words. In previous novels, Rash includes some fairly graphic intimacy scenes, but the two in The Caretaker are more suggestive than descriptive. The novel is a well-written story about human nature. Best of all, it does not try to make a political statement, a ­rarity among contemporary offerings.

The Librarianist (Ecco Books 2023) also avoids modern pitfalls, specifically the idea that anyone can postpone ­getting old with positivity and a little AI airbrushing. Author Patrick deWitt considers instead the normal process of aging in his latest novel, and the result is a thoughtful triumph.

Bob Comet, a retired librarian, lives in Portland, Ore. A childless divorcé, he has slipped into a quiet routine, content with his solitude and surrounded by books. Think a less grouchy version of Mr. Fredricksen from Pixar’s Up.

On an afternoon walk, Bob meets Chip, a runaway resident from the Gambell-Reed Senior Center. He returns the confused woman and, amused by the hilarious occupants, decides to volunteer at the center and host reading seminars. The exercise doesn’t go so well. After Bob learns a shocking truth about Chip, the book shifts back in time, detailing Bob’s sometimes painful growing-up years.

While old-man-visits-nursing-home sounds like a quaint plot, the book has some surprising objectionable content. There is some heavy innuendo and a few sex scenes, but those moments aren’t very detailed. Much of the story centers on the affair between Bob’s ex-wife and his best friend. DeWitt refrains from painting the wife as a heroine who achieved ­liberation by being true to herself.

The author has a charming way with words, marred by instances of obscenity. People do and say weird things, and deWitt captures this ­without patronizing readers or creating inauthentic characters. The Librarianist is a memorable story with much to offer about aging with grace.