Excerpt from The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

In a little while a nurse with a NANCY name tag and a gold crucifix necklace approached pushing a cart. "Snack time, boys," she said. The cart held four rows of rounded lumps, ten lumps per row, half of them whiteish and furred, the other half dark brown and resembling brains in modeled miniature. "And who are these gentlemen?" asked the man in the big beret.

"Peanut butter balls and raisin balls."

"Which are what, exactly?"

"Peanut butter balls are peanut butter rolled into balls and covered with coconut flakes. Raisin balls are just raisins mashed together."

"And who fabricated them?"

"I did."

"Can I assume you wore gloves?"

Nurse Nancy looked at Bob fatiguedly, as if for a witness. She brightened when she realized she'd not met him before. "Are you new?" she asked.

"Yes, hello, I'm here by the AVA."

Now her face became cold, she wheeled the cart backward, away from Bob. "I'm sorry, but the snacks are not for volunteers."

"Oh, that's all right," Bob told her. He hadn't wanted to partake of the snacks even a little bit. But she remained wary, as if Bob might try to lunge and snap up one of the balls when she wasn't paying attention. The man in the big beret had put on a pair of reading glasses and now was looking over the cart with his head tilted back. "Is there a shortage of food in the pantry?" he asked. "Because it seems to me these are some bullshit snacks."

"Actually, there is a shortage. And if you think it's fun to try to piece together a healthy nutritional program from what they've given me in there, then why don't you do me a favor and think again. Also, I believe I've already told you what I think about your language, have I not?"

"You did tell me, but it must have slipped my mind." He took his reading glasses off. "Brass tacks, Nance. How many can I have?"

"How many do you want?"

"How many can I have?"

"You can have two."

"Two of each?"

Nurse Nancy looked over her shoulder and back, nodded discreetly, and the man in the big beret lifted four balls from the cart, setting them one at a time in a line up his broad forearm. Nurse Nancy wheeled the cart away and the man ate his snacks, quickly and efficiently, looking into space as he chewed, swallowed, chewed, swallowed. After he was done, then he was at peace; he wiped the crumbs from his palm and held out a hand for Bob to shake. "Linus Webster." He asked Bob his name and Bob told him. "Bob Cosmic? What are you, in show business?" Bob was restating his name when Linus Webster became distracted by the television and began wagging his hand to call for quiet. A quartet of female players took to the tennis court and he was turning up the volume on the remote control, loud and louder, far louder than was necessary, or appropriate. The game commenced. The noises the players made filled up the space of the center, heartfelt declarations of physical exertion which were also, in any other context, obscene. Jill was twisted all the way around in her chair, glaring at Linus. "He's doing it again!" she called out. Bob caught Jill's eye and waved; she stared blankly back. Over the sound of the television, he asked, "How's your thumbs?" Jill recoiled. "How's yours?" she demanded. Bob shook his head and explained, "Your thumbs, last time I was here, you couldn't feel them, don't you remember?" A look of glad remembrance crept onto her face. "Oh yeah," she said, then turned back to the wall and resumed her puzzle work. Linus, meanwhile, had propped his head against his wheelchair's headrest and was basking in his audio experience when Nurse Nancy returned to snatch up the remote from his hand and mute the television. She was breathing heavily, glaring into Linus's face. "You should be ashamed of yourself," she said.

Linus asked, "If God didn't want us to appreciate the grunts of others, why did He invent them in the first place?"

Excerpted from The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt. Copyright © 2023 by Patrick deWitt. Excerpted by permission of Ecco. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.