Porn at the library? This writer put wild, real sightings into new book
- - Porn at the library? This writer put wild, real sightings into new book
Clare Mulroy, USA TODAYJanuary 15, 2026 at 6:01 AM
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The library is a place for learning and gathering. But like other public spaces, sometimes people do weird things there.
Libraries “are great community spaces, but the truth of working in a library also is that there are people potentially filming OnlyFans in the bathroom or a lot of drug use,” says Emily Austin, a Canadian author and former librarian.
Austin has seen it all. She still loves the library just the same.
Austin, the bestselling Canadian author of “Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead,” is back with a new literary romp, this time pulling from the strangest (and most wholesome) things she’s seen as a librarian. “Is This a Cry For Help?” (out now from Atria) is about Darcy, a librarian who returns to her job after a mental breakdown to find herself embroiled in controversy over book banning and library policy.
What we do in the shelves
In the book, one of the story catalysts happens when someone files a complaint that a patron is watching porn in the library.
"Is This a Cry For Help?" is out now from Simon & Schuster.
It may surprise readers – as it surprised Austin during her librarian new employee orientation – that in some cases, porn watching by adults is allowed in libraries.
Librarians generally have discretion over their policies, and many do permit adult access to lawful online content such as pornography (like these two Nevada counties with differing policies). Some may enforce conduct rules, especially in the presence of minors. Child pornography, being illegal, is never allowed. In the U.S., libraries that receive federal funding must install filters that block child pornography and "obscene" images (they also sometimes "underblock" or "overblock" non-explicit information).
In the book, which is set in Canada, the patron's actions are in line with the library policy because there's nothing illegal happening on the screen and the man himself is not engaging with the material (readers find out later that there's a pretty hilarious research reason why he was watching it in the first place). Austin and her character use this debate as a lesson on libraries as democratic institutions. As Darcy explains to concerned patrons in the book, the definition of pornography has evolved. Erotic art from Pompeii, for example, was once restricted to permitted men with “proven morality” and is now open to the public.
“If you restrict people's access to what you consider pornography, what's to stop you from restricting access to something else? Who gets to define what that is?” Austin says. “The definition of pornography, for example, is sort of nebulous. And if you were to talk to people who were a part of a particular culture or a particular time period or had a particular religious view, they might identify pornography as being something very different than what I would personally identify it as. It gets really complicated.”
Public libraries are 'one of the last third spaces'
Austin is also reminded of far more wholesome human moments. She’s watched people learn to read. She’s watched teenagers struggle socially and then make a new friend.
She worked in programming to plan an “orange shirt day” on Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, which honors Indigenous children taken from their families and forced into residential schools. She hasn’t forgotten a conversation with a survivor of one of those schools who told her how important it was to see everyone wearing the color every September.
Emily Austin is the bestselling author of four novels, often featuring queer and neurodiverse characters.
Libraries are often “romanticized,” Austin says. While they can be fantastical places, they are also very practical. Patrons can use free computers to apply to jobs and attend resume coaching. There’s tax help. There’s heat in the winter and air conditioning in the summer. You can even get gardening seeds at some libraries.
“People really strongly associate libraries with books and they are important in terms of literacy and reading, but they're also community spaces. They're one of the last third spaces. They're one of the last free places where people can go without the expectation of spending money,” Austin says. “The purpose of a library is for people to have free and open access to information because that is required for a democracy and to defend intellectual freedom and to fight back against censorship and to fight back against the invasion of people's intellectual freedom.”
The library as a metaphor for the human condition
In “Is This a Cry For Help?” Darcy’s love of categorization lends itself to a personal excavation. After her ex-boyfriend Ben dies, she’s forced to reckon with a version of herself who hadn’t yet come out as a lesbian. She feels confused about their age gap now that she’s Ben’s age. She feels guilty for grieving. She feels like a bad partner to her wife.
She’s also subjected to attacks by a small but mighty group of protesters who want to censor the books and programming at the library. Some of these people attack her for her sexuality and views.
Book bans are dangerous, Austin says, because they restrict content that can help youth understand themselves. The first time she read a book with a lesbian character, she was 23 years old. How young would she have come out if she had representation sooner?
“We’d be closer to our truer self if we had access to everything we need to really inform ourselves,” Austin says.
Darcy eventually pilots a “Human Library” program, a real initiative where patrons “check out” a person with a different life experience. In 15- or 30-minute conversations, participants hear what it’s like to be that person and gain an empathetic understanding of a new perspective. In a book teeming with tension from protesters and counter-protesters, it offers a brief moment to connect based on shared humanity.
As a former librarian, Austin is concerned about censorship calls from across both sides of the aisle. She doesn’t want to see any book restricted, even if it contains content she considers abhorrent.
“That’s a big part of what librarians learn, is that you have to defend access to all information, even information that you don’t agree with,” Austin says. “In that first philosophy class I took (in grad school), it was one of the first things that my professor talked about. … Having access to information that you don’t agree with is critical to developing an understanding of what you believe.”
Clare Mulroy is USA TODAY’s Books Reporter, where she covers buzzy releases, chats with authors and dives into the culture of reading. Find her on Instagram, subscribe to our weekly Books newsletter or tell her what you’re reading at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Porn at the library? Writer turned wild, real sightings into a book
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