Rick Simonson

Field Trip: Minneapolis/St. Paul

A few months ago, there was writing here of a mid-summer Midwestern trip which had me traipsing about in head-high cornfields almost before doing or seeing anything or anyone else. Relatives and bookstores would ultimately figure in the chronicle. But there had first been that beckoning moment. Corn does not grow that way in Seattle.

It's a few months later, and again, the Midwest calls. This time it's farther north on the plains - the Twin Cities. I would eventually get to some cornfields - a few days, and some dropping of temperature after arriving. This trip had more urbane, book-driven purpose underlying. First things first.

It had been twenty years since my first visit there. I've been back a few times since, never as much as it feels I should. Lots of people known and worked with are there, or have been there. A lot of Minnesotans - a lot of northern 'M' state people, from Montana, Michigan, and Maine, for that matter - have some borderline affinity for Seattle and this corner of things. People move here, or there, travel back and forth.

That June 1988 first trip had been quick: an anthology project with Scott Walker and Graywolf Press. Graywolf then was newly moved back there (from its Port Townsend and Graywolf Ridge, on the Olympic Peninsula, origins). The Twin Cities then were coalescing into something unique on the literary map. 

Funding from foundations and corporations, especially, was helping foster the evolution of small literary presses into non-profit organizations, the idea being to enable a reasonable structure for sustaining themselves after their founders might move on, to lend stability and expertise where it was needed while founders were still involved.

Milkweed Editions, which was there already, was one such press. Allan Kornblum moved from West Branch, Iowa, where he was operating the Toothpaste Press, and transformed into Coffee House Press (1984). Scott Walker moved the Graywolf pack (himself and the books) to St. Paul, quickly transforming and growing it from its very modest beginnings.

That 1988 weekend was a time when these and other presses were there, going through forms of growth and change. Most had started exclusively, or primarily, with poetry. Most were starting to add more fiction, if not non-fiction.

Other players and presences from then: the area had a general, regional wholesaler, Bookmen, of some size and reach. Bookslinger, a small press distributor was, if memory serves, on its way out (soon, if not by then), but was being somewhat subsumed in purpose, by the formation of Consortium, a sales and distribution company that would more pro-actively sell the presses' books in via sales reps. Also then, area-based B. Dalton was one of the biggest stories, where chain operations were concerned. New York people made the trek to sell their lists in.

Bookstores were also part of the landscape, and part of that first visit. Most prominent was St. Paul's Hungry Mind. The other independent I knew most of was Odegard's. Recollection is that there were 2-3 stores then, but one store I was taken to had been an Odegard's - but had recently been ceded to Borders. This was quite early in the Borders story, before K-Mart and the national rollout. This was starting to go beyond Ann Arbor, but still seemed of Ann Arbor and the origins.

The first day of an October 2008 visit was mostly spent poking around neirghborhoods where some of the Twin Cities' stores are today, along with a nice, sitdown visit at today's Graywolf Press.

Of the four stores I knew most about, there was one - Magers & Quinn, where David Unowsky now helps ply the wares - that I did not get to.

First stop, on the St. Paul side, was Common Good Books (www.commongoodbooks.com). Most known to those of us outside the region as the bookstore that Garrison Keillor owns, it bears the traces of him quite lightly, at least in first glances. A few photos, a poetic salute on the white greaseboard, a stack of signed copies ... they were there. But far and away what caught this eye was how real, how settled a place it felt. Sue Zumberger was there tending things, letting me in before the place normally opened, not so much because of my saying where I was from, but that I was there.

It is a lovely, lively feeling place, the most airy and light I have ever felt a subterranean retail space. The primary entrance comes off a passageway fronted opposite by the local office of the US Congresswoman. Another, surely much-used way in, is a direct stairway treading up to the very convivial corner coffee cafe, Nina's.

Common Good Books celebrates its second birthday this Saturday, November 1. To celebrate, for sure. It feels, in a good, comfy way, like one of those places that's been around much longer. It inhabits its self and place well. The lit sections, such as my eye perused, were great. Skylights angled in from the sidewalk above let whatever light outside in. Then some labyrinthian passages: nooks and crannies abound. There is one angling passageway, taking you in and out of low-ceilinged coziness to daylit airiness within steps. A hideaway couch and chairs worthy of Shakespeare & Co. in Paris is back by the travel books.

Mr. Keillor apparently puts in some time when he can - shelving and sorting books. And, by what Sue Zumberger says, he is the one behind such section names as 'Quality Trash' and 'God.'

Next on the rounds was the office of Graywolf Press. Fiona McCrae and company were there, the former not long back from Frankfurt, and soon to be off to her other base of New York City. In the good-news realm there is Salvatore Scibona's novel, The End, being a National Book Award finalist. Fingers crossed there, and evening finery being figured, no doubt. Some other current books and authors were talked of - Per Petterson, Jeffrey Renard Allen (Holding Pattern), Linda Gregg (All of It Singing), Jeffrey Yang (New Directions poetry editor, with his own collection out, An Aquarium), Brian Culhane (The King's Question).

I was probably one of the more unsual visitors. Besides the good talk of books, Seattle, how things worked (not only books but also fundraising) and were there, and elsewhere (New York, Farrar, Picador, Macmillan), I did some holding forth about Graywolf's origins and early days - telling stories of Scott Walker back in Port Townsend, then the early years there in St. Paul. The bookroom had a fair number of the early tomes - Mary Matze and Erin Kottke, who did the most putting up with me. One way, I pointed out, to tell which books were from 'back then' was lack of a bar code.

Forthcoming titles The Accordionist's Son by Basque writer Bernardo Atxaga  ('wait, one of his was a Pantheon book, a while ago ...') and J. Robert Lennon's Castle were put in-hand before I left, and driving directions to my next stop, Micawber's, were provided (thank you, Mary, for the handmade map).

Located in a neighborhood of northwest St. Paul (which I think it is very close to what would be a northeast neighborhood of Minneapolis), Micawber's is where Tom Bielenberg and co. went when they left the Hungry Mind/Ruminator, not too long before the end would be in sight. Tom himself was arriving for a 12 - 8:30 shift, moments after I had meandered in. Into quick talk we went, good catching up, good seeing this lovely place, where everything feels selected. Good lit, good regional titles (a strong point of Common Good, also), and a good-sized children's section are all there. It's a different scope and scale from what Tom knew at the Hungry Mind. If he misses what he knew there, he seemed to have weekday serenity and pleasure in what this is. His quite friendly Penguin paperback rep was in - from Chicago - after introductions and more banter, they set to work, a cleared table right there in the store. I'd known - and enjoyed that kind of buying, too, once upon a time, there on the floor (not that I'm ever that far, a summons or suggestion now). 

From there it was south and west over the Mississippi, and across Minneapolis to the other store in the Twin Cities owned by a writer, Louise Erdrich's Birchbark Books (www.birchbarkbooks.com). Also located in a nice residential area, as were the other two, I was somewhat prepared for how sweet, how real this place would feel, by reports from other visitors over the years the store's been open. Among the features - an  in-store confiessional. No signs of Louise herself this day, but Susan White, who has been a part of things from nearly the beginning, was there, doing the good bookseller thing (helping one man asking about where he might find a particular Quincy Troupe poem, someone else about directions). The store has several aspects - a fun children's section, a nicely annotated lit section (Louise's shelftalker recommendations liberally adorning many books), an extraordinary Native American lit and nonfiction section, and, related to the last, a nice array of crafts and items. I am not usually much of a 'sideline' browser, but here I was taken.

Doing the busman's holiday thing, I was also doing my poking around best - peering in the back corners, looking for and at backrooms. At Birchbark that meant seeing an-almost hidden gem of a feature - a 'signing' wall. Quick glancing took in all kinds of names and dates - Simon Winchester, Robert Bly, Barry Lopez, and many others. Catching my eye most poignantly, signed back in 2000, the signature of the late, great, and much-missed James Welch.

Some shopping done there, as at the previous stops, it was time to drive through the falling leaves, back to where I would be checking into a hotel and begin the 'official' reason for the visit.

One related thought as I drove across town, was in how in a conversation along the way, it was said (not critically) that the area lacked the big destination bookstores it had once known in the Hungry Mind or Odegard's. Perhaps, I was now thinking as I drove, at least those stores would be/are missed. How could they not be? 

Nevertheless. Each of the stores visited this day are of a size that any of the 'destination' independents of now once were - they all spent time at this neighborhood scale. That was actually how they became 'destination' places. That was also how I felt, regardless of size, Common Good, Micawber's, and Birchbark Books were - very much destinations to be sought out, places where you will find books, talk about books, good service, god thoughtfulness, worth going for.

1500 miles I'd come - and on the basis of this day alone - it was a very good trip. 

Posted by Rick Simonson on October 28, 2008 | Comments (0)