Category Archives: book reviews

The Redemption of Evansville

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Those of you who have read Little Bookstore know about the trip Jack and I made in 2011, visiting indie bookstores and small towns. One of these was a little place along I-64, not named in the book because every bookstore we tried to visit there turned out to be a porn shop.

Fulton Avenue Books was the only shop I mentioned by name in Little Bookstore. I had no idea at the time how (in)famous it was. About every three days, someone finds my blog through a search on “Fulton Ave Books,” or “Fulton Books Evansville,” or even “porn shops little redhead Wendy Indiana.”

(I have no idea, and I’m not about to Google to find out.)

But soon after my book came out,  a nice e-mail arrived from a lady named Betsy, saying, “I know where you were: Evansville, Indiana. I live there, and it’s not ALL bad! There’s a really nice Middle Eastern restaurant just one town over, and pleasant shops. We’re not just porn bookstores!”

I told Betsy it was a fair cop; yes, it was Evansville, and we’d actually tried FOUR stores, not just the two mentioned in my book, and she shot back an invitation that, next time we were out that way, she would buy us dinner at a great place in a cute part of town.

So when Jack and I realized that our trip to MariaJoseph Books near St. Louis would take us past the infamous Evansville, we let Betsy know.

“Saturday night dinner on us,” she responded. “We’ll show you the good stuff!”

Well, she and her husband Freeman and daughter Sarah showed us Newburgh, which is a little town right next to Evansville, full of quaint shops and cool bistros. And we had a lovely meal of goat cheese and curry and baklava–oh bliss. But we teased her that she’d had to come to the next town over for redemption–whereupon she hauled out a little gift bag and gave us chocolates (mmm, pecans) and lavender soap as well, both made in Evansville.

We had a grand time discussing Sarah’s teen sweet stash exchange with an online pal from Sweden (salted licorice not a hit with Sarah stateside; peanut butter spat out in horror in Sweden) and talking about the chances of survival for printed books and media. (We think they have better chances than peanut butter does in Sweden).

Would that all small towns in America had such staunch defenders as Betsy is to Evansville! Evansville, thou art redeemed–and scented pleasantly with lavender.

Angelic Bookstore Owners

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Bookstore owners are the sweetest, smartest people in the world. Trust me on this. ;]

Jack and I had a really busy month in July, with a sick foster cat (TEAM HAZEL FOR THE WIN) and a final push on finishing our basement so we could get moved in and turn upstairs into the SECOND STORY EATERY.  Jack was just back from leading his annual Scottish tour (next year now booking) and he was the wee bit under the weather. Yuppie stress in the grand scheme of the world, but it induced an aversion to doing anything besides sitting quietly on a Friday evening, staring at the wallpaper.

But Angelic Towe, owner of MariaJoseph Books in Wallach House, downtown Eureka, Missouri, had asked us ages ago to come do a book event in her bookstore. The store she started after reading my book. (Does this make me legally culpable?)

And poor Angelic, the week before we were to sojourn at her lakeside house for the event plus an extra day of swimming and sunning, was descended upon by family members under some surprise stress. En masse. Her bedrooms filled, her fridge emptied, and her Mom heart expanded.

We said, “Let’s just reschedule.” She took it bravely, but it slipped out that she’d “done some publicity.” So we said “OK, let’s get ‘er done.”

And when we arrived last night to the hotel she’d booked for us–gorgeous and with a SWIMMING POOL–in the midst of her own stress, she’d left us a chocolate bar and a gift card to a local restaurant. When we went to the first gig she’d arranged, we saw the “publicity”: elegant postcards in lovely color tones with antique script, touting the event at Angelic’s store.

Plus, her kids helped make cookies for today.

On the way home from Angelic’s, we will make a swift detour through Granite City, IL to BSR Used Books. Owner Bruce Campbell coined the phrase TEAM HAZEL FOR THE WIN while keeping up with the saga of our elderly, sick foster cat. He’s been one of her staunchest supporters in her new life in North Carolina (complete with her own Facebook page, as befits a celebricat). We look forward to meeting him.

And we will be stopping off in Indiana as well, but that’s a surprise we’ll keep for a later blog. Suffice it to say we’re meeting some (more) very cool people for a very fun reason.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, it behooves us all to make friends with independent bookstore owners: sweet, cool, smart people. They care about cats, and they make cookies.

In fact, I’m pretty sure it is independent bookstore owners and school teachers who form the safety net enclosing the world, keeping it from flying apart.