The Midnight Library is a 2020 work of fiction by the New York Times bestselling British author Matt Haig. In this novel, Haig addresses weighty topics through a main character, Nora Seed, who attempts suicide and must explore what it means to live while in the gray area between life and death. The book also addresses themes including small acts of kindness that can have large impacts and the power of perception. The Midnight Library won the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction and became a best seller upon publication. Haig is also known for Reasons to Stay Alive (2015), which became a Sunday Times best seller; A Boy Called Christmas (2015), a children’s novel; How to Stop Time (2017); and Notes on a Nervous Planet (2018). This study guide references the 2020 Viking Edition, an imprint of Penguin Random House.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with a startling fact: The main character, Nora Seed, will attempt suicide 19 years after the events of the Prologue. The Prologue takes place in the Hazeldene School library, where Nora plays chess with the school librarian, Mrs. Elm. Nora has recently given up swimming professionally, to the chagrin of her father. She now worries about her future. Mrs. Elm reminds Nora that she can travel anywhere and be anything she likes. Specifically, Mrs. Elm encourages Nora to leave Bedford and to take up glaciology. A while later, Nora learns from Mrs. Elm that Nora’s father has just died from a heart attack. Mrs. Elm comforts a grieving Nora.

The narrative jumps 19 years into the future. Nora still lives in Bedford and is living a lackluster life. Within the span of two days, Nora’s cat, Voltaire, dies, her estranged brother visits town but ignores her, she’s fired from her job at the music store String Theory, and her only music pupil, Leo, cancels his lessons. These setbacks, coupled with earlier hardships like Nora’s mother dying from cancer—Nora backed out of her engagement to her fiancé, Dan, two days before the wedding, she turned down a chance to move to Australia with her best friend, Izzy, and she backed out of becoming a rock star in The Labyrinths with her brother, Joe, and his best friend, Ravi—cause Nora to spiral into depression. Nora considers herself a black hole imploding in on itself. She writes a suicide note and overdoses on pills and wine.

Nora wakes up in a strange place. She locates a building filled with books and, to her surprise, a librarian who is the spitting image of Mrs. Elm. Nora soon learns that she is in an in-between state, hovering between life and death. The place she is in is the Midnight Library, a quantum state that allows her to move between an infinite number or possible versions of her life. She must use this library to find a life worth living before she dies. The concept confuses Nora because she simply wants to die, but she engages Mrs. Elm by trying on countless lives and attempting to find the meaning of life.

Nora experiences many lives, including one in which she marries Dan, one in which she and Joe make it big with their band, one in which she marries a kind soul named Ash, one in which she sticks with swimming and becomes rich and successful, and one in which she pursues glaciology. With each life, Nora learns a little more about herself and the meaning of life. It’s not until Nora comes face-to-face with a polar bear intent on killing her that she realizes she has wanted to live this entire time. Nora’s problem, it turns out, is her perception of life. She’s always thought of life as an event that should be magnificent. Now, she understands that the point of life is life itself. In taking a lesson from her favorite philosopher, Thoreau, Nora determines to alter her perception of life by experiencing solitude and then cherishing the ups and downs that come her way.

Though Nora learns a valuable lesson about life, she still has a lot to figure out. She must continue exploring lives and experiencing heartbreak until she realizes that the best life for her to live is her real life. With this knowledge, she must make it out of the Midnight Library before it crumbles and, back in her life on Earth, survive her attempted suicide. Only then can she begin to value life by reconnecting with others through love and kindness. She overcomes her overdose and then sets about experiencing her life with a newfound appreciation of what it means to live.