Zibby Mag

By Joanna Rakoff

Every once in a while, I find myself in conversation with another writer — usually older, and slightly jaded — who waves a hand dismissively when we land on the subject of book tours.

Tours, the standard line goes, are exhausting and nerve-wracking. You’re shipped around the country in the most unglamorous way imaginable —flying from Wichita to Chicago to St. Louis to Boise, bleary-eyed and disoriented from a poor night’s sleep in a paper-walled Hampton Inn.

“After a while, the bookstores all begin to look the same,” this writer inevitably tells me. “It’s a blur.”

That standard line isn’t wrong: going on tour can be grueling (we’ll get there in a moment), but bookstores have never looked the same to me. Conversely, I can describe the interior of every bookshop I’ve ever visited (for readings, interviews, signings, parties, or simply as a patron) not just in the U.S., but all over the world.

As a kid, I spent so many hours sitting among the stacks of the old Kepler’s bookshop in downtown Palo Alto that I can still remember what the carpet felt like in my favorite corner of the YA section, where I devoured Lois Duncan novels, my back pressed against the bookshelf’s vertical edge. As a teen, I haunted The Strand so often that I could still draw a map of the store from memory. Every bookstore has its own distinct personality, smell, organizing principle, and ascendent vibe. For that reason, I love them all.

When my first novel, A Fortunate Age, came out in April 2009, I regarded my tour with nothing but excitement.

In June of that year, after a round of well-attended events in New York City, I set off for California, where most of my family, including my parents, had migrated over the years, and where my publisher had scheduled events at seemingly every bookstore in the Bay Area.

For a week, I logged hundreds of miles on my tiny rental car, turning up at each location with my hair freshly washed, lips freshly glossed, bearing a smile and a marked-up copy of A Fortunate Age. At each bookshop, I found an enthusiastic, charming bookseller and a willing, albeit half-full, audience.

My week in the Bay Area culminated in an event at BookPassage, a legendary bookstore in Marin County, which — my publicist explained and my friends confirmed — was an exciting venue for a reading, especially for a debut novelist.

However, seven days into the trip, my excitement had admittedly begun to wane. As I drove from my parents’ house in San Jose to BookPassage, ninety minutes north in Corte Madera, I felt more exhausted than exhilarated.

What’s more, I was puzzled by the fact that no one from my family had shown up to any of my events in the South Bay region, where most of them lived. I delicately broached the subject with them, suggesting that they come to the next one. By way of response, I was told that I didn’t understand Bay Area rush hour, that a person couldn’t drive from San Rafael to Menlo Park, for example, on a Wednesday at 6 p.m.

As the sun settled into the Pacific, I walked into BookPassage, my blouse sweaty and crushed from the drive, and glimpsed the now-familiar rows of metal folding chairs, in which a smattering of people sat, chatting or reading or rifling through their bags. On the display table sat piles of my book, pristine in the yellow vellum dust jackets. These piles shocked me every time: The physical manifestation of this story I’d spent six full years concocting and working on during every stolen moment — the dark hours before my son awoke and after he went to sleep, on lunch breaks from my job as a magazine editor, as I rode the bus to Union Square.

As I contemplated this, a bookseller — male, a decade or so older than me — emerged from the event area and walked toward me, smiling.

“Hi!” I said before he could ask if I needed help. “I’m Joanna. I’m…”

As we talked, I found myself speaking with rare and brazen honesty, my throat increasingly choked with emotion, my eyes pricking with the threat of tears. For a week, I’d arrived at bookstores expecting to see family, the people who presumably loved me. Why had none of them — not one — shown up?

”Oh!” he interjected, with a worried look. “So nice to meet you. Let me show you to the annex.”

I laughed, gesturing to the rows of chairs. “ I think I can find my way.”

“Actually, we had a little mix-up,” he explained. “We somehow booked two events for tonight. We had a local author who needed to hold his book launch tonight. So he’ll be here in the main store and we’ve put you in the annex.”

“Great!” I said, though I felt otherwise.

I followed him down a narrow path to a hut-like structure that contained a small conference room. A lone elderly woman sat beaming among three rows of empty chairs. He gestured to the podium and I stepped behind it, feeling somewhat absurd. I’d had small turnouts that week — those half-filled rooms, which had made me burn with guilt and shame — but nothing this small. All these events — not just in California, but all around the country — took me away from my kids, for an evening, a day, a week at a time, and to leave them for an audience of one filled me with something akin to agony. My son was only four, my daughter not yet seven months; I’d nursed her while reading at my book launch, tourists staring at me through McNally-Jackson’s windows.

“Let me check back at the main store,” he murmured, before darting off, “in case anyone isn’t sure where to find you.”

I shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other and fumbled with my book, laying flat the section I’d marked for reading. Would I really read? For just one person? Was this woman even here to see me? Or had she stumbled out here by mistake, in search of the big event in the main space?

“I’m so looking forward to seeing you read,” she said, as if she’d heard my thoughts, still smiling. She held a neat purse on her lap. Beneath it sat a copy of my book.

“Oh!” I said, fighting back tears of relief and gratitude. “You may be the only one!”

“My great-niece, Jackie, is your friend. You’re not reading anywhere near her, so she told me I had to come see you in her place!” My mind spun. Did I know a Jackie? “And then I looked up your book and saw that it’s based on The Group, which is one of my favorite novels!”

Before I could jump out from the podium and hug her, the bookseller returned, with two others in tow. He glanced at his watch. “Since it’s such a small group, why don’t we just pull the chairs together and talk…” With great relief, I stepped out from behind the podium and collapsed in a chair.

Once in our little circle, the questions started coming: How had I started writing? How was journalism, and criticism, different from fiction? Was my novel — as so many reviewers presumed — autobiographical? How did I think New York had changed in recent decades?

As we talked, I found myself speaking with rare and brazen honesty, my throat increasingly choked with emotion, my eyes pricking with the threat of tears. For a week, I’d arrived at bookstores expecting to see family, the people who presumably loved me. Why had none of them — not one — shown up? Not even, my mother and father, though I could barely bring myself to admit it. And why had these strangers made the time to see me?

Toward 8 p.m., the bookseller rose from his seat, smiling, “I think we could talk to Joanna all night.” The others nodded. “And I think we can all agree this has been a very, very special event. Certainly, one of the best I’ve ever attended.” More nods. “Let’s thank Joanna for coming out here.” Their applause seemed louder than I thought possible for an audience of five.

I walked the narrow path, now lit by twinkling ground lights, back to the main store with the bookseller. When we arrived at the register, he handed me my handbag along with a white box bearing stationery engraved with my name, a gift BookPassage gives to all authors who read at their shop. At this gesture, I found myself nearly overcome with tears once again, unable to utter the words “thank you.” Instead, I clung to the pristine box and raised a hand in salute.

“You know,” he said, sheepishly, “I’m actually the owner.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling somewhat foolish. “So nice to meet you.”

“I’ve hosted hundreds of events,” he said. “And that really was more fun than most of them. I know it doesn’t feel great with three people in the audience. But an intimate talk like that.” He paused, shaking his head. “Those people will remember tonight for the rest of their lives.”

I will, too.

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Joanna Rakoff is the author of the international bestselling memoir My Salinger Year and the novel A Fortunate Age, winner of the Goldberg Prize for Fiction and the Elle Readers’ Prize. She has written frequently for The New York Times, Vogue, and many other publications. The film adaptation of My Salinger Year, starring Sigourney Weaver and Margaret Qualley, is currently streaming on Amazon, AppleTV, and Showtime.