|
This writer, too, worked in the shop. For three weeks, re-alphabetizing
the paperbacks on the wall in the front room. It was a short stint,
with wages taken out in books (retail value, of course), and I remind
myself of the people who spend a semester at a fancy college and
then claim lifelong membership in the alumni association. But I
got enough of an insider's view to satisfy my curiosity--and I came
away with an anecdote of my own. It has something to do with Rhoda
running around the shop waving the business end of a broom, winning
my eternal admiration. And because she has that admiration, I'll
add nothing more to the story.
JACE SCHINDERMAN, New York, Associate Dean for Special Projects,
Columbia Business School
I was 25 in 1976, when I moved to New Orleans
from New York. It was a city I knew well from my undergraduate days
at Tulane. When I left in 1973, I had no idea that I would return.
But return I did, excited about my prospects of being back but terrified
at starting a new life and finding a job.
Britton introduced me to Rhoda when I came for
an interview at the Book Shop, legendary to me from my school days.
I remember Marigny telling me that everyone gave me odds of lasting
from two weeks to four weeks. With two strong personalities, everyone
was sure that Rhoda and I would never get along.
Chris Wiltz |
Liz Perl |
In fact, Marigny was right about the strong personalities.
What couldn t have been predicted though, was that Rhoda and my
book shop friends--Marigny, Cutting, Mark, Wendy, Betty, M.A., Fej,
and others--would become my new family in my new home.
I hope Rhoda means it when she tells me that I still have a job
waiting at Maple Street. You never know. I have done it before.
In late '77, after leaving for law school and then dropping out
of law school three months later, Rhoda signed me back up to work
at the book shop at a time when having the shop to go to was what
I needed most. And when I went off again, first a few days a week
and then for good, to Crescent House, Rhoda once again stood behind
me.
Every time I make a big change--from New Orleans
to Chicago to New York or from the book shop to the Battered Women's
Program to Tulane, IIT, and then Columbia--I think about whether
I would like to forget about it, stop complicating things and come
back to Maple Street Book Shop.
JERRY BROCK, New Orleans, Founder of WWOZ-Radio
Working in the Maple Street Book Shop was my first
part-time job when I came to New Orleans in early 1978 to start
WWOZ. One day, Rhoda wanted me to make a delivery to the other shop
that was then on Jackson and Prytania. I told her that I didn't
have a driver's license on me, and she said, "No big deal.
You won't get caught." So I said, "Well, if I get pulled
over, you have to come get me." I was driving her little blue
VW--with an expired brake tag. Of course, I got arrested--and, of
course, she had to come get me.
Editor's note: I can see why that day sticks in
your mind, Jerry. I'M SORRY! I'd like to remember that you were
delivering a very special book to an elderly customer on her deathbed,
to excuse my shameless disregard for law and order.
SUSAN BRILL ROSENTHAL, Durham, North Carolina, First Vice
President, Merrill-Lynch
When Walker Percy was at Maple Street after the
publication of The Last Gentleman, a lot of people were in the book
shop. A really effete Tulane type edged his way through the crowd,
took Walker's attention away from someone who was talking to him
and said, "Dr. Percy, I'm writing my doctoral dissertation
on the influence of Kierkegaard's philosophy on this book."
Walker looked at him wide-eyed and said, "Who's Kierkegaard?"
LIZ PERL, New York City, Director of Publicity for the Berkley Publishing
Group
I have a lot of great memories of working in the
shop. I think of it often as I sit in meetings and listen to editors
and sales directors screaming, or as I fight the subway crowd to
get home at night. I think of the Saturday evenings sitting behind
the desk listening to the Prairies Home Companion, talking about
the latest Dick Francis with one of the regulars.
Rhoda always had the radio tuned to NPR. Although
the classical music did give the shop a dignified atmosphere, it
bored my 22-year-old sensibilities. I used to switch the station
to WTUL as soon as she would leave. I'd listen for her car, so that
I could switch back before she'd return. She usually caught me,
though. She'd come back in and immediately switch it back. I believe
I tried to blame it on some rowdy customers, but she never bought
it.
One of my favorite visitors to the book shop was
Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams was a wily old man with a big, cunning
grin that made him look like Dr. Seuss' Grinch. Mr. Williams used
to visit Rhoda to hit her up for money. I believe he started by
doing odd jobs oddly, then simply began to solicit donations. Each
request was accompanied by a fantastic story: He had been hit by
a cart and needed medical assistance; his daughter had been hit
by a car and needed medical assistance; his daughter hit somebody
else with a car and needed bail money . . .
One day, he ambled into the shop and approached
Rhoda. "Hey, Mr. Williams. How's it going?" she asked.
"Not well," Mr. Williams moaned. "I really need some
money. I gotta get up to Jackson to see my daughter." "You
got to go up there again?!" Rhoda asked. "Yeah, it's horrible.
She got shot in the stomach." "That's really horrible,
Mr. Williams." "And she's pregnant. Now she's in the hospital--she's
bad, the baby's bad, it's bad." "Well, Mr. Williams, I'll
see if I can help you out."
Rhoda gave Mr. Williams some money, I don't remember
how much. He thanked her and left the shop. "That was really
nice of you, Rhoda," I said. "Except," Rhoda replied,
"I believe that is the same daughter that was killed two months
ago--then had twins last month."
I left the book shop to move to New York. Once
here, I figured that I would look into publishing since I had already
begun with books. I got a job as a publicist at HarperCollins. I
knew that I had less experience than many of the applicants. Once
hired, I was told it doesn't make me more popular, but I hope it
opens their eyes, that it was my experience at the book shop that
landed me the job. They were thrilled that I had been out there--on
the front lines. It's amazing how many people are editing, marketing,
and distributing books and have never actually sold a book to a
customer, stocked a shelf, or placed an order. When some marketing
genius unveils a design for a counter display that is three feet
wide and two feet tall, I think of the little counter at Maple Street
and ask, "Have you ever been in a book store?" It doesn't
make me more popular, but I hope it opens their eyes.
I'm now the director of publicity for the Berkeley
Publishing Group. We publish such authors as Tom Clancy, Dick Francis,
John Sanford, Steve Martini, Lillian Jackson Braun, and many others.
As I sneak through book stores and airport newsstands, turning my
books face out, I remember the good old days of stocking the shelves,
and I think of how much I would have hated it if some publisher's
rep came through after me rearranging shelves!
Marigny Dupuy
|
MARIGNY DUPUY,
New Orleans, Children's Book Columnist for The Times-Picayune
I have already written a piece for the last
Maple Street Wag about the influence Mary Faust had on my life.
Looking back, I see that her daughter Rhoda had an equally strong
(but perhaps not quite as wholesome) effect herself. Chris Wiltz
reported in an earlier Wag that on the day in 1965 when she
and Rhoda came into the shop to give me, Mary's new employee,
"the business." Well, this is what it looked like
from my side of the desk. |
It was late afternoon, and I was done with my
classes at Newcomb for the day. Mary had gone out on an errand,
leaving me in charge of the shop. I was sitting at the desk dressed,
I think, in a floral print Villager dress with a Peter Pan collar
and, most likely, a matching cardigan. I was probably tiding up
or filing something, anything to be extra helpful because I was
practically beside myself with pleasure to have such a wonderful
part-time job at age seventeen.
The shop was quiet. I heard the front door
open and close and I looked up to see two very tall and definitely
cool college girls. I remember Chris's height but not exactly what
she was wearing. I will, on the other hand, never forget what Rhoda
had on. Rhoda wore black jeans, a black turtleneck sweater, black
boots, black finger nail polish, and she had blond hair that hung
to her waist. I had never before seen anyone who looked like that.
Rhoda made it clear that she had come in to check
me out. We had spoken on the phone a few times when she called her
mother from away at college, but this was the first face-to-face.
She asked a few exploratory questions in a slightly mocking but
faintly humorous tone. Chris went into the back of the shop to look
for a book, and Rhoda hit me with the big one, "So, does your
family have money?"
I remember being dumbfounded by the question,
but I don't remember my reply. I think that I must have been quick
enough to shoot something back at her, and I think we both began
to laugh. It was the beginning of a friendship.
Within a few months, I had shed my floral prints
and was wearing blue jeans and boots myself and learning under Rhoda's
careful tutelage how to walk in a cool, hip way. Chris was already
cool, and Rhoda was beyond cool, so now we could pal around together
being cool and doing cool things. And we did.
ANONYMOUS
I worked part-time on a regular basis at the Maple
Street Book Shop from 1976 to 1989. To the disconcertion and dismay
of current employees, I still act like I work there whenever I wander
into town--helping customers and getting behind the cash register.
I am incapable of visiting any book shop without "straightening
the shelves."
Some MSBS anecdotes I remember:
In 1977, Janel Feirabend applied to work in the
Children's Book Shop--it was the first time she'd encountered such
a job description: "customer service, ordering and shelving
books, book fairs, cleaning up roach turds. . ."
From left clockwise: Blair Durant,
M.A., Carole Gottsegen,
Terri Mojgani, Rochelle Marcus, Rhoda Faust, Mark Zumpe |
When things got slow, one of the employees would hid behind the
tall bushes growing in front of the Children's Shop and put on a
"puppet show." Innocent passersby were verbally accosted
and found themselves in conversation with a stuffed penguin.
Living around the corner of the book shop was
a mixed blessing. On most days I could wake up at 9:45 and still
be the first one at work. During the winter months, however, I would
occasionally receive a phone call at 8 in the morning begging me
to go over and light the stoves so that the temperature in the book
shop would get above freezing by the time we were scheduled to open.
One such call was fortuitously made. I arrived at the book shop,
discovered that the hot water heater in the back room had sprung
a leak, and was able to alert the proper authorities (i.e. Rhoda)
before the books in the science fiction and Greek and Roman sections
were damaged. One morning I found myself in sole charge of the adult
book shop. There were customers standing in line to check out and
the phone was ringing off the hook when Walker Percy came in to
sign hardback copies of The Second Coming and Lancelot.
The books were precariously balanced on shelves in the bathroom
behind the front desk. When I picked up the stack of Percy books,
the two shelves and all the books remaining on them fell on top
of me. This gave me something to report when Rhoda came in an hour
later and asked how things had gone. My tale of destruction evoked
a cry of alarm, but not the response one would normally expect.
So much for the American Labor Movement, Worker's Compensation,
and Safety in the Work Place. "Management" had more pressing
concerns: "When Walker was here, did you smile? Were you nice
to him?"
"Customer Satisfaction" and "Service with a Smile"
are high priorities in the Maple Street Book Shop Handbook (a.k.a.
So You've Always Wanted to Work in a Book Shop?!). There were, however,
limits. Several customers were trying to check out and had questions,
but one particular visitor was belligerently persistent in demanding
a thorough synopsis of every single book displayed around the front
desk. Finally, one of the employees, in an attempt to stop the harassing
interrogation, announced coolly, "Oh, we don't read the books.
We just sell them."
VALERIE MARTIN,
Rome, Italy, novelist whose works include Mary Reilly
and The Great Divorce
In the fall of 1979, shortly after I returned
to New Orleans from a long stint at New Mexico State University,
Rhoda was kind enough to offer me employment at the Children's
Book Shop. I was glad to have the job and grateful to Rhoda
(to this day) for hiring me because I would have been completely
broke without it. I'm afraid I wasn't a very adept bookseller.
I was particularly hopeless at balancing out the cash register
at the end of the day. |
Valerie Martin & her daughter,
Adrienne |
I found this relatively simple task so difficult that I have since
repressed all memory of how it was accomplished. I think I never
got my figures to come out exactly in my entire time there.
In spite of my general incompetence and the crisis
of conscience I suffered every time I sold a ten-year-old a copy
of Judy Blume's Forever, those months were pleasant, nearly
serene. My daughter Adrienne was four and she spent her mornings
at the Newcomb nursery, only a few blocks away. On my lunch break,
I walked over to meet her and she came back with me to pass the
afternoon lounging on the floor or swinging on the front porch.
After we closed up, we went back to our apartment on my bicycle.
I am a great lover of routine and this was a good one. I wrote much
of my novel A Recent Martyr during that time. Fortunately,
I didn't know then that it would take eight years to find a publisher
for that book.
During my tenure at Maple Street, Anne Rice came
to New Orleans from San Francisco on a book tour for her novel Feast
of All Saints. She did a signing for Rhoda, and somehow I got
a free signed copy of the book. While the party was going on, I
wandered out to the street to see the limo she was traveling in,
presumably by her publishers. Can my memory be correct? I believe
it was a blood-red Cadillac with the initials "A.R." in
a kind of crest on the side. Other friends have told me they remember
the car, but no one seems to recall the detail of the elegant initials.
Perhaps they only appeared in a dream I had later. Or, more likely,
as so often happens, I had a vision of the future.
|
