The Page Turners

Sometimes a book comes out of your soulYou're taking a train ride from Alabama to the Chinatown in San Francisco to be with your mother, who is dying of cancer.  The year is sometime in the 1920s.  A white man walks by, carrying a book that slips away from him.  He can't find it...it's after midnight and the train is dark. The book calls to you. It says its name is Jimmy O'Toole and the man who dropped it is a sorcerer.
 You're holding a grimoire...although it used to be more than that. It used to be a person. You know your mom should be able to work this out.  She's always been into magic. You just have to live long enough to get the book home to her...