Anthony’s Bible
For this book story, I have changed the names of the family involved, at their request, to protect their privacy. That was the only thing they asked me to do when I asked if I could add this to the blog.
When I was learning the bookbinding trade, I asked my teacher, "Is there any damage that can't be repaired on a book?" The answer was quick and crisp. "Yes, fire damage. Just tell the customer there is nothing you can do for a burnt book." If you ask 1000 book restorers to look at a heavily burnt book, 999 will decline. It's the smart move. But as Forrest Gump said, "I am not a smart man."
When Michael Bradley called me right after Christmas and told me he had a book that had been in a fire and he needed it restored, I did have that one moment of lucidity and I explained why book restorers did not accept burn books. Then he told me the story behind his request, and I found myself saying, "Dave, this is something you have to try to do, and you have to make it work, somehow, some way. "
Michael and his wife, Debbie had lost their son Anthony in a fiery car crash. Anthony had been driving home late one night when his car ran off the road, was demolished, and caught on fire. I've learned from my own life that sudden deaths are possibly the hardest to come to terms with. In just a few seconds, your whole life changes, and things that meant a lot to you suddenly don't seem so important. You find yourself reaching out for anything that will anchor to the person you lost. I imagined that's what his mother was doing when she insisted that she go to the burnt mess of a car, and look for anything of Anthony’s. The police had told her there was nothing left to salvage but she went anyway. Michael told me she wasn't at the car for more than 30 seconds when she reached into the center console area of the car and pulled out the remnants of Anthony's bible.
So, when Michael told me this, I had that moment when my inner self sighed, and before I knew what I was saying, I said ship the bible to me and I'll see what I can do.
When the bible arrived, I unpacked it, and I just stood there and stared at it for a good 3 or 4 minutes. It was a large lumpy mess of black, smelly charred paper, but it still had the basic shape of a text block. I put on vinyl gloves and a respirator mask and went over to the far corner of the shop where my exhaust and vacuum system are set up and went quietly to work. I removed the tiny piece of cover that was left and set it aside. There was a barely visible name tag on the front. I tried to go through the pages that were still somewhat intact to remove slips of paper I had seen, but I gave that up almost immediately as the burnt sections of the pages disintegrated at the touch, but I saw that for many, in fact most of the pages, the burnt areas were more or less limited to the bottom and fore edge area. I went back to my work bench, picked up my leather paring knife, a razor sharp blade that looks like a fancy large wood chisel, and I began to slice and carve away the charred paper sections. They crumbled off like black snow flakes.
One of the idosyncrosies we do here in the shop is to call the jobs, not by the customers name, but often by a description of the book. "Have you started Ulysses? Did you cut the leather for Polar Explorer? Did you finish Alice in Wonderland?"
From that first day onward, in the shop we just called this job, The Fire Bible job.
Now a big problem with anything that has been in a fire is the charred smell. The high heat, combined with the crazy chemistry of burning stuff, embeds the smell so deep that normal cleaning never removes it. Factor in the porous surface of paper and basically you have a first class odor trap. The only way you can eliminate this charred smell is with ozone treatments. Fortunately, we have an ozone box where we treat smelly books and for the next few weeks, Aaron's bible made trips in and out of the ozone chamber. Between treatments, I kept shaving off small edges of burnt paper that I thought was still contributing to the lingering smell. I could have just chopped large sections off, but the idea was to save the bible, not chop it into a salad. There were also attempts to clean the pages of soot and debris,with a Hepa vacuum. It was during one of these attempts that I found a perfectly preserved photo and some hand written notes of Aaron's. Still, despite numerous ozone treatments, there was still a mild lingering smell. One afternoon, I was alone in the shop and I picked up what I was pretty sure was the title page of the book. I thought if i could get the publisher's name or the bible edition I could do a google search and see what kind of binding was originally on the bible ands try to match that.
As I wiped and cleaned the page, a few words of the title started to appear, then a few more, and then I stopped. Right there in front of me was the edition name of the bible. It was called "The Fire Bible, Student Edition." I guess I stood there for a few moments with my mouth gaping open, just astounded at the improbability. The improbability that was the name we were calling this job
That was the moment too when I knew this was going to turn out all right. I don't why I suddenly felt that, the book was still a smelly mess, I hadn't even started the work to rebind it, but I just knew then that it was going to turn out alright. But then I thought of another problem, one a little more perplexing. How do I tell Micahel and Debbie their sons bible was called the Fire Bible? Do I just send it back and let them discover it on their own? Should I send an email, because that is the way we usually communicate with customers. Should I call them? I pondered this for the next few weeks, during the time the bible was being finished. When Michael emailed me for for an update I suggested we do a conference call. We went over the few remaining questions about the restoration and then I felt myself talking quickly, which is what I do when I get nervous, I told them there was something I needed to tell them about the bible andI wasn't sure how to say it, and then I blurted it out, "Anthony’s bible edition is called "The Fire Bible." The next moments were as emotional as you can guess, and so private I choose not to write about it here.
So here we are. The story comes to a close. I put a new leather binding on the balance of the text block and from the outside now, it looks just like any other bible. Most of the pages are still readable, in fact, some portion of nearly every page is readable. We made a special clamshell box to hold the bible, this is the way all rare or irreplaceable books are kept and stored and certainly, Anthony’s Bible falls into that class. I added a small built-in tray area under the bible itself so the papers and photos I found could be stored with the bible. We sealed them in an archival pouch. Looking back at the photos of how the bible looked when it came into the shop, I'm pretty happy with the final result. I better understand now all the problems you encounter with a fire-damaged book. I understand why book restorers cringe and then decline these types of jobs. I understand a lot more than I did just a few months ago, but I also understand that sometimes I am glad I am not a smart man.
Note: In the photos, I’ve shared here, I have blacked out Anthony’s real name.
