Strand Bookstore. - Upstairs at the Strand: writers in conversation at the legendary bookstore

Upstairs at the STRAND

Writers in Conversation
at the Legendary Bookstore

E DITED B Y
Jessica Strand &
Andrea Aguilar

W. W. NORTON & COMPANY
Independent Publishers Since 1923
NEW YORK LONDON

To Dad, always

F OR NEARLY NINETY YEARS, THE S TRAND HAS BEEN A New York institution, a mecca for readers across the five boroughs and beyond. It began in 1927, when Benjamin Bass, a devoted reader and lover of the arts, opened a small secondhand bookstore on Book Row, the stretch of Fourth Avenue between Fourteenth Street and Astor Place then known for its density of bookshops. Bass put up $300 of his own money, borrowed another $300 from a friend, and opened the Strand Book Store, named for the street in London. With Basss shrewd business sense and deep knowledge of books, the Strand soon attracted a following, and even as most stores on Book Row had closed, the store thrived. In 1956, Bass moved the store to bigger digs around the corner, at the corner of Broadway and Twelfth Street, where it stands today as Book Rows sole survivor.

Over the years, floors were added, sections and shelves were expanded, order was brought from the chaos. (Perhaps the only physical detail that remains untouched is a ground-floor column that stands as a memento to the past.) The store is still run by the Bass family: Basss son Fred joined the fold, and in turn so, too, did Freds daughter Nancy. Even as the store has grownweathering the rise of big chain bookstores and then the Internetthe Strands identity has remained well defined. The Strand, as Fran Lebowitz has said, is a monument to the immortality of the written word and hence beloved writers. It is an enormous, overstuffed place where just about any book can be found, evenand especiallythe one you didnt know you were looking for. Not for nothing do the stores red awnings boast 18 MILES OF BOOKS . And it is just as much a place to find people as it is books: from its eccentric staff, deeply in love with books, to the writers, intellectuals, and artists who have long gathered there, to the New Yorkers and tourists of every stripe roaming the stacks. As Pete Hamill has written, the Strand is an institution as mixed, as diverse, as democratic, as intellectual, as high and low as the city itself The Strand is [New Yorks] great meeting corner.

The last floor to be added to the store was the Rare Book Room, in 2003. The walls of the loft-like space are covered in floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hard-to-find and unusual volumesfrom signed first editions of beloved twentieth century novels to small-run art books to mysterious, ancient tomes on the occult. Oriental rugs in deep maroons and blues dot the floor along with overstuffed leather chairslike the library of some eccentric, prodigious collector.

It was this feelingthe serendipity, the variety, the happy collision of books, ideas, and peoplethat we tried to capture in our reading series up in the Rare Book Room. The goal was to match writers with other writers: two (or more) equals on stage for freewheeling, candid conversations on their work, their craft, their likes, their dislikes. Some of the conversations gathered here are between old, dear friends, like Mark Strand and Charles Wright, or Hilton Als and Junot Daz, or Tina Chang and Tracy K. Smith. Others feature great admirers who had never met (or met only briefly), like Renata Adler and David Shields, or Ta Obreht and Charles Simic. In all cases, the result is every bit as electrifying and edifying as the store itself.

Jessica Strand

U PSTAIRS AT THE S TRAND

Deborah Eisenberg
&
George Saunders

WITH L UCAS W ITTMANN

LUCAS WITTMANN

Ive been struck by how both of you are such incredibly articulate, expressive people, and yet you are able to capture brilliantly how we are all so inexpressive, how inarticulate and often unable to communicate we can be. Deborah, I was looking at one of your short stories and noted down some phrases that you use, like vaguely severe and kind of churchy. This of course is how we all think and talk, when we are not having a chance to compose ourselves. I was curious to know how you were able to capture those brief moments of inexpressiveness.

DEBORAH EISENBERG

Actually, inarticulateness comes very naturally to me.

LUCAS WITTMANN

Youre proving that not to be true.

DEBORAH EISENBERG

The story in which those particular phrases occur is very voice-y, and it was fun to utilize the complete confusion of natural speech. I enjoy doing it a lot. I dont know what else to say about it, its just fun.

GEORGE SAUNDERS

It is fun. I grew up in Chicago, and one of my early experiences was watching the male neighbors, who were a little drunk but very earnest. They would have, obviously, fully developed emotional lives and longings, but then there would be kind of a crimped output valve. If someone tried to say that they loved you or that they found you outstanding, they would say, You jag-off! You! You! and theyd pretend to knee you in the groin. You come to understand that diction. One of my true breakthrough moments in writing was when I realized that this was actually a form of poetry, that any diction that you overflow, even if its inefficient on the surface, becomes beautiful when you kind of put the screws to it a little bit.

LUCAS WITTMANN

George, when you read out loud you use those voices, but do you write in those kind of voices, too?

GEORGE SAUNDERS

I write in a lot better ones. Ive got three voices that I do: a working-class guy, a rich guy, and a duckI can do a pretty good duck. When Im writing I hear them very well and when they come out, you sort of compromise the solution.

LUCAS WITTMANN

Id like to ask you both about how you started writing. Deborah, with you, it was when you quit smoking, is that right?

DEBORAH EISENBERG

When I quit smoking, absolutely. It had to be one or the other, I guess. I was a very, very heavy smoker, and I absolutely loved smoking. But it became evident for various reasons that I had to quit. When I did I completely fell totally apart, because I was entirely structured around nicotine. I mean, nicotine was my blood, my life. A new person started to formulate. I was a monstrous person. I was a monster. It was just so awful. Its horrible, its awful. But yes, if you smoke, do quit.

LUCAS WITTMANN

George, in your case you found your voice while you were on a conference call, yes?

GEORGE SAUNDERS

I had been working for a long time. I had a medical condition called a Hemingway boner. I just loved him. I loved him! I did that thing that a lot of young writers do, where you take your interesting experiences and try to cram them down your readers throat, in some other writers voice. Of course, it didnt work.