It's not often that someone plays a bagpipe in a crowded bookstore, but Richmond Johnston did just that on Friday, November 11 at Ariel Booksellers in New Paltz. The occasion was a party called The Last Word, at which 14 authors, hundreds of customers, and a man in a kilt gathered to honor the store in the final days of its 34-year run.
Singer-songwriter Kurt Henry, who opened the evening with an acoustic set, has a long history in this venue. "I got off a bus in New Paltz in 1971 as a college junior. Ariel was such an important place for me in my twenties and thirties. Close to half the songs I have written are based on books that I bought at Ariel."
Young adult author Nora Raleigh Baskin was so grateful for the bookstore's support that she mentioned Ariel by name in her book Almost Home. "I'm sorry they're leaving," she says. "Sometimes I drive into New Paltz and just cry."
Henry and Baskin are not alone in their sentiments. When co-owners Dean and Susan Avery announced in September that the bookstore would close by the end of the year, the community response ranged from stunned disbelief to betrayal and grief. Longtime customers sent passionate letters, or lambasted employees in outrage, demanding, "How can you close?"
Irish author and raconteur Malachy McCourt, who brought down the house at The Last Word, says, "Ariel is the heart, the soul, and the intellect of the community, a place of refuge from stupidity, cupidity, and arseholism. Whenever I entered upon those hallowed floors, I breathed a breath of relief and of joy at the welcome, the warmth, and the hospitality so generously extended to all those who live by the pen."
McCourt is among many authors who embraced Ariel as a second home. The roster of distinguished writers welcomed there includes Toni Morrison, William Kennedy, Jane Smiley, T.C. Boyle, Gail Godwin, Da Chen, Joseph Lelyveld, and many more.
With a store this beloved, what happened?
Susan Avery explains that for each of the past four years, sales have been flat or decreased, as operating expenses increased. "We were on life support and decided to pull the feeding tube," she told the industry newsletter Bookselling This Week. The Averys cite multiple reasons for closing, but first and foremost is a seismic shift in the way books are sold.
Major bookselling chains siphon business from independently owned local stores–Woodstock's Golden Notebook reported a 25 percent decrease in sales since Barnes & Noble opened in Kingston–but they're not the only competition. Big-box retailers such as Walmart and Costco offer bestsellers at slashed prices; even supermarkets and drugstores now sell books. And while Eckerd's may not have a wide-ranging backlist of literary titles, all these retailers compete with the bottomless stockrooms of Internet giants like Amazon.com.
The American Booksellers Association, a not-for-profit trade association representing independent bookstores across the country, cites a dropoff during the last decade from 4,000 to 2,000 retailers. Even with such dire statistics, a college town bookstore would seem to have a built-in textbook market. Not so, says Dean Avery, "The textbook industry has all jumped onto the Internet."
The exodus doesn't end with textbooks. Some publishers, including Viking, now offer direct sales to the public via their websites. Google Print has already started to scan over 10,000 public domain titles for online perusal; Amazon.com and Random House are experimenting with pay-per-view downloads. Such news can make a booklover feel like an ox-cart drover on the information superhighway. Frank Sirak, a sales rep for indy publishers, says, "We're entering the autumnal phase of our industry."
Sirak, who's made sales calls to Ariel for 25 years, calls the store's closing "an unseen blow." Along with changes in book-buying habits, he fingers the publishing industry for a bottom-line, marketplace mentality incompatible with literary standards. As publishers pay for desirable front-table space and display books in pop-up "dump bins," the book business starts to resemble a supermarket. "The American public will buy Wonder Bread if that's what you advertise. You get your rye, your pumpernickel, and your cracked wheat from the independents."
Like the Averys, Sirak "came out of a 60s/70s ethos. I went into bookselling because it was acceptable capitalism," he grins. Susan agrees. "I never planned to be in retail. I got into this business because I love books." She recalls Ariel's early days, when she and Dean and their two young daughters rented the 625-square-foot gas station on the corner of Plattekill and Main, inviting friends from New York to help renovate in the August heat.
"We had six or seven guys camped out on our living room floor. My father-in-law was out there banging nails. I stained every shelf in the place," Susan muses fondly. She remembers Ariel's first inventory: The Last Whole Earth Catalogue, The Tassajara Bread Book, Our Bodies Ourselves—and the ubiquitous Lord of the Rings series.
The Averys bought the building in 1975. A year later, they knocked down a wall and renovated, introducing such amenities as a receiving room for deliveries and an indoor-access bathroom.
The store expanded twice more, and the stock changed with the space. In the 1990s, Ariel started marketing toys and gift items. "We tried to keep pace, even be on the cutting edge. We started a newsletter, a website," Susan explains, "It was almost a curse that we were so successful. We just kept expanding, and then it's hard to cut back."
The Averys drew controversy by opening a Starbucks franchise on Ariel's corner. The Poughkeepsie Journal recently quoted Dean as blaming village government opposition to chains for driving people to Kingston and Poughkeepsie to shop for essentials at malls with Barnes & Noble. The coming of chain stores to New Paltz would, of course, affect other mom-and-pop retailers, and Main Street versus Chain Street remains a hot-button topic at town meetings. But if things go according to plan, Malachy McCourt's "hallowed ground" will house another franchise: a Mexican restaurant called Blockheads, part of a mini-chain with five locations in Manhattan.
Susan doesn't regret Ariel's growth, but she can't hide a note of nostalgia. "When we opened in 1971, we sold books. We didn't have couches or coffee or cards or toys, all this stuff. We had books."
 Friends, writers, and neighbors gathered to bid farewell to Ariel on November 11. |
At least one recently closed bookstore has found a way to reopen. Kepler's Books and Magazines, a Bay area institution run by friends of the Averys, shocked many by locking its doors without notice on August 31. The community rallied, digging into the deep pockets of Silicon Valley donors to reopen the store with new shareholders and a new business model. (www.savekeplers.com.)
Reflecting on Kepler's near-demise, a San Jose Mercury News columnist wrote of independent bookstores, "We love to browse in them, hang out in them, pepper the staff with questions as if they were reference librarians. Then we buy our books from Amazon because it's more convenient, or from Walmart because it's cheaper."
The Hudson Valley boasts an exceptional group of independent booksellers. The Golden Notebook is going strong at 27 years old; Dutchess County's Oblong Books has two locations, and Merritt Books three. A relative newcomer, Inquiring Mind, carved out a niche on a well-trafficked corner in Saugerties. There are even a few ambitious new kids on the block.
The Spotty Dog Books & Ale, which opened this July on Hudson's historic Warren Street, may set new standards for diversity: besides offering over 10,000 books, the former Victorian firehouse also sells art supplies, and its vintage bar serves artisanal beers including Kick-Ass Brown and Espresso Stout.
Warwick's newly opened Baby Grand Café is another multitasker, combining an antiquarian book business with a coffeehouse music series, a gallery, and space for community events. Co-owner Ruth Siegel acknowledges that bookselling is "a dying business," but waxes eloquent about the tactile pleasures of browsing and handling books, and the importance of reading. "Literature is about freedom of independent thought. Books have been banned and burned throughout history. It's so important to be there, especially in this cultural climate," says the new mother, who opened the store with her husband in spite of financial duress and a flood that decimated their stock. "A bookstore is just a positive place. It really is."