July 21 . 2000 ' jaast out 43
The final chapter?
A plea for patronage of some fragile institutions: queer and independent bookstores
y the time this column appears, one of my
favorite queer bookstores— Boston’s won
derful Glad Day Book Shop— will have
closed. In business for almost a quarter of
a century, the store is closing not because of
financial difficulties, but because the space it’s
occupied for many years is being turned into
high-end condos and the owner can’t find a
new space in a neighborhood overrun with
Starbuckses and Pottery Bams.
The story of the independent
bookstore forced out by the ever-
encroaching chains, online stores
I
and rising costs of operating a
— J
small business isn’t a new one.
—J
And when it comes to queer,
alternative or women’s book
stores, the casualties have been
particularly high. But this is more
.
• mattám
than just a business issue.
1 walked into my first gay
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bookstore a dozen years ago,
when I moved to New York and
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discovered A Different Light,
ip
then located on Hudson Street.
T he store was a funky mix of
books, magazines, T-shirts,
M
posters and various other items
devoted to queer culture. For
me, newly released from a reli
gious college and starving for
anything gay, it was like walking
j
into a candy store. I bought
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more books than 1 could read,
just to have them on the
BY
shelves. I found out about A C T
MICHAEL
U P and Queer N ation meetings
THOMAS
by reading the fliers pinned to
the jumbled mess that was the
community bulletin board. I
met my first boyfriend there.
Now, A Different.Light has moved to more
upscale Chelsea, where it competes for business
with a gigantic Bames & Noble and faces an
uncertain future. And the store is not alone.
Forced to streamline, diversify and shape up,
many long-standing gay bookstores are finding
themselves losing the battle for attention to
younger, hungrier and more aggressive outlets.
As someone who makes a living from writ
ing, I understand all too well the fragile finan
cial web of buying and selling books. 1 know
that small stores simply can’t offer the same
discounts, variety and instant gratification that
chains can. And, yes, I’ve bought books online
when 1 couldn’t find them at my local indepen
dent store or when 1 just didn’t feel like leaving
down everything that was in print; and long
before mainstream publishers took any interest
in gay books, there were small, queer publishers
putting them out at great trouble and expense.
No, this isn’t just about the books. You can
get gay books pretty much anywhere these
days. The disappearance of the queer bookstore
is frightening for a larger reason. It used to be
that these stores functioned as de facto com
munity centers, information libraries and even
pickup joints. Going into one, you felt that you
belonged there: These were “your” books and
This isn't just about books, although we need to
keep in mind that long before Barnes 8 e Noble
and Borders made those little sections for
"gay litera tu reth ere were small-bookstore owners
making queer literature available
by hunting down everything that was in print.
the house. Besides, my own books sell very well
through those same outlets, so I can’t complain
too much. And I know that there are lots of
people out there buying queer books online
who would never buy them if they had to walk
into a store.
But 1 think we need to look at what we’re
losing every time another store closes. This
isn’t just about books, although we need to
keep in mind that long before Bames & Noble
and Borders made those little sections for “gay
literature,” there were small-bookstore owners
making queer literature available by hunting
,P ortland ' s ONLY I ndepenoent • N oncommercial
L istener -S ponsored C ommunity R adio S tation
“your” people and “your” space. Browsing
through the latest issue of Out, or reading the
first chapter of the new Andrew Holleran or
Dorothy Allison to see if it hooks you, just isn’t
the same when you do it at Bames & Noble
surrounded by 6 billion copies of the 15th
Harry Potter installment, Oprah’s latest pick
and a stack of Dr. Laura’s current abomination.
A few weeks ago, I flew to Chicago for the
annual Lambda Literary Awards, where my
book That’s Mr. Faggot to You received a
Lammy for best humor book. O n the way
home the next morning, when I sent my carry-
on through the security scanner, 1 was asked to
step aside and open my bag for inspection.
Having gone through exactly the same thing
the previous year, I knew what they were look
ing for.
“It’s an award,” I said as I took out the
Lammy nestled in the center of the suitcase
and held it out for inspection.
The security guard doing the check took
the award— which is a Lucite block with a
medal embedded in the center—and stared at
it for a minute.
“They thought it might be a bomb,” she
explained. Then she took a closer look. “Gay
and lesbian book award?” she said, staring at
me curiously. “They have an award for that?”
Yes, they have an award for that. And we
have that award because we like to honor
books by and about queer people and those
people’s lives. As more and more of gay cul
ture is subsumed by the mainstream, it’s easy
to forget that our inclusion in that main
stream is largely dependent upon what the
Man can get out of our culture. Our words
stay in print as long as they make money, not
necessarily as long as they’re needed. Our
voices are heard as long as what we say isn’t
too offensive.
So the next time you need to pick up a
book, please consider taking a trip to your local
queer store, if you have one. If you don’t, please
consider asking whatever store you shop to
stock more queer titles.
As for the booksellers out there, my heart
felt appreciation to all of you working (often
covertly) within the chains to make sure queer
books don’t disappear.
And finally, to the great folks at Glad
Day—and to everyone who runs a gay book
store— a big thank you for keeping us at least
one step away from the jaws of assimilation.
■ M ichael T homas F ord ’ s latest book, It’s
Not Mean If It’s True, will be in stores soon. He
can be reached at Shopiltee@aol.com
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