Ode to a Bookstore

It was a glorious year

A little over five years ago, having just been laid off from my job after two decades, I had the following brief conversation with one of my daughters:

Me: “Is it crazy to be thinking about opening a bookstore?”

Her: “No crazier than talking about it your whole life and never doing it.”

And a child shall lead them.

I found myself remembering this conversation, and the bookstore that resulted from it, while pondering a writing challenge on the Vocal Media site called (No)Regrets. That challenge is about an embarrassing or cringeworthy experience in your past, and this is neither of those. But until very recently there were regrets about The Last Word Bookstore, my life-long dream that opened in 2016 and blazed across the sky for just over one glorious year.

That the store did not survive is not particularly shocking in itself; this happens with a lot of new businesses of all types in the first five years, not just bookstores. That didn’t lessen the sense of loss, however, and I admit that I struggled for a long time afterward. Even worse was the fact that I lost my sister less than a year after the store closed. It was a dark time.

The store’s demise was, in retrospect, a perfect storm of both foreseeable and unforeseeable factors. I should have known that loving books and having 20 years of management experience doesn’t necessarily mean you’re prepared to run an indie bookstore, especially if liquidity is an issue going in. It also doesn’t help that while my town has a solid community of avid readers and book buyers who were beyond supportive, that community was far smaller than the one that is large enough to support a brewery on every corner. And perhaps I was too much of a snob, openly mocking authors like Nicholas Sparks, books like Twilight, and genres like Amish Romance; all of these are objectively bad, but they sell.

That’s the bad of the experience. Now let’s talk about the good, and why it would fit into the “No Regrets” category after all.

First and foremost, I owned a bookstore. Along with writing a novel and working as a roadie for Bruce Springsteen, it was one of the three goals I’ve had since I was 10 years old. I can check two of those off the list while I wait patiently for Bruce to call.

I also got to name my store after the fictional bookstore in my Last Word novel series. Since I’ve also put some bits from that year into subsequent stories, (see the story “Sal’s Really Bad Day” for a near-verbatim account of one day I had), I’ve also had the surreal experience of life imitating art imitating life, though I use the term “art” loosely.

I got to experience the insanity of Poetry Nights, which I highly recommend even if you’re not normally a poetry fan. There was the annual “Talk Like a Pirate Day” celebration, complete with costumes and pirate songs and grog. We hosted unknown local authors more talented than any Random House is currently churning out. And in one of my proudest moments, I got retweeted by Neil Gaiman when I complained on Twitter that I couldn’t get enough copies of his book Norse Mythology.

I had the joy and privilege of recommending books to total strangers who ultimately became good friends. It should shock no one who knows me that the best selling book in the store was The Shadow of the Wind or that our first book club was Hemingway-themed. What I didn’t expect was the amount I learned about books from my customer friends. They recommended almost as many books to me as I did to them.

On a strictly personal level, one of the greatest things about that time was that I was able to see my sister nearly every day. She (along with so many others) was crucial in helping get the store off the ground, and she had an art studio in the back of the store. This meant I got to watch her paint almost every day, something I had not done since high school. Now that she is gone, I would not trade that time for anything.

Other non-bookselling moments stand out as well. Once, while listening to The Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack in an empty store, I was caught doing the Time Warp by the UPS guy because I forgot there was a delivery scheduled that day. The floats of a Pride Day Parade passed right by my front door because there was a drag bar next door. And my now son-in-law proposed to my daughter in the History section. In a nutshell, I had the only job I never considered work, and for a year had the greatest clubhouse ever.

I also did something every one of you book lovers should do in your own home or business. When I was painting the walls before opening, I wrote Every Book Has a Soul (the famous quote from The Shadow of the Wind) on every wall in the place in permanent marker, and then put four coats of paint over it. I heard from the next guy to move into the space that he simply put two coats of paint over mine, which means that unless a future tenant strips the paint down to the sheetrock, Zafon’s immortal words will always be there. Good Juju indeed.

I said earlier that I had regrets about the brief life of the store until recently; I don’t anymore, and here’s why. If you told me that in exchange for losing nearly everything (except my kids), suffering financial catastrophe, and having no clue what to do going forward, for one year I could tour with Bruce and the E Street Band or for one season I could play goalkeeper for Arsenal or have a year-long torrid-yet-doomed affair with Kate Beckinsale I’d agree to that without a second thought. I’ve come to realize it’s the same with that bookstore. Sometimes things don’t last, but that doesn’t mean they were a failure or time wasted. Swing for the fences my friends; we only go around once. I’ve had people ask me if I’d still do it knowing how it ultimately turned out. Today I can finally say without hesitation: absolutely, and I just may again.

If you enjoyed this story, you can support my writing directly by joining Medium here. You’ll get access to all of my articles (including my weekly rants and numerous Springsteen stories) as well as those of all the other great writers here. You can also get my articles in your inbox by subscribing here.