I love wood engravings and I believe this image is the work of the wonderful Wesley W. Bates.
I’m chilled to the bone with rain seeped through my sweater, toes cold from walking through puddles on the glassy asphalt in Fashion Boots instead of Practical Boots. It’s grey and windy, and though I was tempted to stay inside and keep warm by the fire, I’m pulled west today. As soon as the kids are bundled into the car after school, we head into the downtown traffic. It takes us three quarters of an hour in the pouring rain to get from our neighbourhood in the east end, a few kilometres from the steel mills, to the leafy west end university borough with the gold and green storefront, but we have to go to this place today, because it won’t be open tomorrow, or ever again.
Did you ever see Nora and Delia Ephron’s 1998 movie “You’ve Got Mail”, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan? The premise of the film is that Meg Ryan’s character’s niche bookstore can’t compete with the large corporate bookstore that moves into the neighbourhood, an endeavour led by Hanks’ character. In a Hollywood "twist", Ryan and Hanks begin an anonymous online relationship, and fall in love. I liked the movie, but not the ending. Spoiler alert: the small bookshop closes up forever. In real life, Barnes and Noble, which many feared would shutter indie darling Shakespeare and Co, inspired the screenplay, but has now itself been overshadowed by an even bigger giant: Amazon. All of which brings me to today, the last day of business for my favourite local bookstore, Bryan Prince Booksellers.
I’m not a native Hamiltonian, although we’ve been living here now for over ten years, but I feel definite hometown pride in an institution like this one. I discovered the bookstore when my brother began studying at McMaster University. The space was like something out of a movie. The staff was friendly and didn’t mind children climbing rolling ladders to find their next favourite book on the highest shelf. You could buy pulp fiction alongside literary magazines, local authors beside Globe and Mail bestsellers. Whenever an author came to town, Bryan Prince Booksellers would set up a table for them wherever they were reading. Once, I helped the staff pack up a pop up shop at the Art Gallery of Hamilton after a literary festival. I have seen these people sweat over heavy boxes of books. It has been a labour of love for stories.
Hannah Mary McKinnon lives in Oakville. Support your local bookstore and pick up a copy!
Novels are my guilty pleasure, and my taste ranges from domestic suspense (just finished Gilly MacMillan’s “Odd Child Out”) to smart Chick-Lit (Jennifer Weiner) to page turning historical fiction (a la Kate Morton). If someone local writes a book, I’ll buy it. I’m proud of the literary vibrancy in this city. From the Lit Live readings at the Staircase Theatre to the Grit Lit festival next month, people want stories, and readers need books. So, what about independent bookstores? Is it over for them? In this city of over 500,000 people, we have only three left: Epic Books, Pickwick Books and J.H. Gordon booksellers. It’s got me thinking crazy things, like – I should open a bookstore. But I’m saying that because I’m spinning my wheels with my own writing, ergo opening a business seems do-able today. Even on a sad day like this, a classic retail operation in an Amazon world seems feasible. That’s how rational I’m feeling.
I’m a little depressed. It’s kind of the rain, and kind of a general feeling of malaise. I’m stuck right now at chapter eighteen of my second novel. The characters keep circling one another with the same old clichéd longing looks, and I think I’ve written five scenes in the dining room, in a novel about war. (And, there are no guns in this dining room, not even hidden ones.) Also, in an effort to get my creative juices flowing, instead of running or jogging or biking, I’ve been baking. Thirty minutes ago, a button popped off my coolest plaid blazer (yes, those three words totally go together) so yeah… the death of the indie bookshop + writer’s block + rain = (as my writer friend Donna says), "booze then".
The thing about an independent bookstore is that they really love books. The precious shelf space isn’t shared with twenty-five dollar soy candles, hot-water bottle warmers or cheesy journals with glittery hash tag covers that say things like #seize your moment! The booksellers at these dying havens are making space for the mini-worlds of authors who’ve toiled in obscurity, working odd jobs and late nights to bring the stories in their minds to life. An Amazon algorithm to suggest books you might like doesn’t come close to that human connection when you say you loved Anastasia Krupnik and a human being lights up with shared nostalgia and suggests something similar for the 2000’s. (Word Nerd by Susin Nielson?)
When we left the store this afternoon, I wanted to cry but I figured the owners have probably shed enough tears with strangers. Even if they hate the expression “it is what it is”, I bet they’ve said it today; even bibliophiles can run out of platitudes. Its not a funeral, but it feels like it. The store was packed, but there weren’t very many books left. I spotted a local poet in head to toe yellow rain gear, children holding their parents hands and rubber neckers searching for a deal on the $3.00 hardcover table. I’d attended book launches in the past and fantasized about my book in that space. I feel like a missed a deadline I didn’t know was there. Melodie Campbell, a former writing instructor of mine, once said that new books have forty-five days on the shelf (one or two copies, spines out) to create buzz and sell, otherwise they get shipped back to the publishers and the titles fall into obscurity. It’s so tempting to think why even bother?
My kids chose a book each, and as we paid, there was something solemn about the transaction. I was grateful for the silence, grateful no one asked for a stupid loyalty card. A little two year old, the clerk’s boy, reached for my son’s Blue Jays ball cap. He was bewildered by the crowds of people in an otherwise calm environment. We laughed a bit at his lack of inhibition, the way he seemed to sense something different was happening today. The toddler won’t remember the store when he’s older, but knowing the special people around him, I doubt he’ll lack for books.
I would be totally catatonic right now except for a piece of good news that I recently uncovered thanks to some intrepid travelling pals. It turns out, while indie bookstores are closing everywhere (and toy stores, clothing stores, record stores), two years ago, Judy Blume and her husband co-founded a branch of Book & Books in Key West Florida. This isn’t the first time writers have pooled their resources to keep bookstores alive. Ann Patchett co-founded “Parnassus Books” in 2011, Emma Straub opened “Books are Magic” in 2017 and Jeff Kinney’s “An Unlikely Story” is the bookstore the profits of “Wimpy Kid” built in 2015.
So maybe there’s another chapter booklovers in my city will have to wait for. If I see Lawrence Hill or Gary Barwin around town I’ll ask them what they think. Until then, keep reading and if you get a chance to buy a book, shop local.