Confessions of a Bookseller’s Son
Yesterday I purchased my first book from Google. The novel, This is Where I Leave You, was the 45th book I’ve purchased online since I first bought an Ipad in May. I’ve bought 37 ebooks from Amazon, 7 from Apple, and now 1 from Google. It wouldn’t matter, except that I’m the son of Carla Cohen (recent Inc Magazine tribute), one of America’s finest independent booksellers.
Whether genetically or behaviorally programmed, books are deeply ingrained in my persona. My childhood: a 4-story house lined with overflowing bookshelves on much of the wall space. Some of my earliest memories are of Babar and Make Way for Ducklings. When I was 5, I took my turn reading out of the group Haggadah in front of 30 people assembled for our Passover seders. Every year, my parents dutifully schlepped their ” vacation book suitcase” brimming with paperbacks decades before Kindles were invented.
All of this history occurred, before my mother founded Politics and Prose Bookstore. After that, it was heresy to buy books anywhere but at the family business. Periodically, I found myself in airports with nothing to read and forked over the cash for the next Robert Parker or Michael Connelly novel. Mom knew about these impulsive purchases and her frown was a painful admonishment. It wasn’t just that shopping at Borders or Walden was distasteful. The larger infraction was that I chose mass market paperbacks, instead of Wallace Stegner.
Nina and I always returned from Washington with a huge shopping bag of books — perhaps the greatest perk of my life. I can hear her.
Get whatever you want honey. Shop the whole store. Pick out things for the kids. Do you have enough? Would Nina like this fun new Indian cookbook?
Each individually bound volume resonated far beyond the intrinsic value of what was between the covers. Providing and choosing books were acts of love. As her staff followed in her footsteps advising and nurturing their loyal customer base, P&P matured and thrived during a period when all hope faded for most of America’s independent bookstores. Sales increased meaningfully at P&P in 2010 with no thanks to my 45 ebooks.
Initially I felt guilt, but used my grueling travel schedule to rationalize such disloyalty. Later, as we embarked on the Politics and Prose sales process I knew habitual ebook use would inform our process. The more I read, the more I could entertain Mom during her illness. What comforted her most was talking about books and the business. She smiled when I told her about my enthusiasm for the Ipad Always she hoped I would embrace her taste and finally put down the remote control.
My passion for ebooks has greatly informed how I think about Politics and Prose. I acknowledge that I expect Politics and Prose’s core business model (the selling of bound volumes that sit on shelves) to erode during the next 10 years.
Another time, I will write an homage to e-reading’s many benefits, but for now, as my eyesight has abruptly deteriorated (Iphone nightmare) I can tell you I prefer bumping up the font to hunting for reading glasses. Among the books I’ve read electronically, I regret not owning a third of them in hard copy and in the cases of Freedom and The Finkler Question have purchased hardbacks as a follow-up. But banking on the ability to sell a relatively low-margin product that has technology alternatives will not be sustainable for the next 27 years.
For me, this has little impact on how I see the future of Politics and Prose because what my Mother and her partner Barbara created was far beyond a bookstore. It’s Washington’s premier cultural institution and an incredibly vital sanctuary for the civil exchange of ideas. Change is coming. With those changes, new owners have a wonderful business opportunity to expand on my mother’s mission. More products and services can serve Politics and Prose’s wonderful customers with opportunities to nourish their appetite for knowledge. Politics and Prose can live forever as a marketplace for ideas. To be sure, this is brand that cares about books, ideas, and people. The business will always sell many, many books. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be Politics and Prose.
Over the summer, during Mom’s clearest moments, we ruminated about the future of these marketplaces. These conversations synthesized 20 years of motifs about entrepreneurship in book retailing and the management of a community’s intellectual salon. Sitting on our lawn next to the forsythia that had come and gone she turned to me.
I wish I could be here to watch the next 10 years. With the right owners, P and P can be so much more than a bookstore.
This is the great challenge and exceptional opportunity that awaits the next owners of this brand’s untapped, unexplored potential. I’m excited for Washington.
My Eulogy for Mom
3 years ago, during the Presidential Election of 2008, a once revered job title of my parents’ generation was rediscovered: community organizer. I’m glad Mom lived to see that. She was one of this city’s visionary community architects.
Frequently, she and I ruminated about the importance of community. We would brainstorm ideas for indoor playgrounds, independent movie theaters, adult education facilities and various incarnations of food bazaars. During these conversations, I learned to appreciate thread of community organization that weaved through my mother’s personal and professional life.
One trip to Holly Street told you Mom was no Felix Unger when it came to organization. Our house was a Category 5 hurricane and FEMA never arrived. But she had a Ruthian-sized ability to create community. SDA, HUD, Work Seekers, Tifereth Israel, The Climate Action Project, and Politics and Prose attest to her master planning credentials. Community fascinated mom. How it could be built and sustained. She knew the ingredients and wanted to share her recipes.
Communities begin with people. This year, Dad, Eve and I learned that it takes an enormous village to care for somebody with a terminal illness. During this trying year, dozens of you helped us care for Mom. From the beginning, her friends from birth to her final days – the famous playpen buddies — Betsy and Carol were with Mom nearly every week. Carol’s husband ensured Mom received the finest medical care that our country had to offer. Camp buddy Helen stayed with Dad more nights than we can remember. Beryl, Beth, Carol, Louise, Ann Shields, Ann Rigby, Bonnie and Liz lifted Mom’s spirits in her final months. Mom’s nieces and nephews, and her legendarily resilient mother Deedee frequently visited her these past several months. Her siblings, Michael, Anne, Ellie and Frank made her the happiest and made her laugh summer and fall. Mom’s oldest brother Mark cared for her with a tenderness and persistence. In the trenches, Mark is your guy. Particularly if you have a freezer that stores homemade ice cream.
When Mark wasn’t feeding Mom, members of her Politics and Prose family delivered food for months. She provided them with a special place to work. They cared for her as if she were more mother than boss. She gave you so much, and you gave back more than any of us could imagine. You helped us survive this very difficult year. We are very grateful. Mom’s friendships and work formed the foundation of our never-ending conversation about community. As Dad, Eve, and I talked I realized that I was writing the Carla Manifesto.
Mom instilled in Eve and I that nothing is worth doing in life if you don’t bring 100% of yourself every day” We always had homemade Halloween costumes or the best cookies at the bake sale. All of Mom’s dabbling in crafts, prodigious baking, and even her 2 decade career in city planning occurred long before she found her true calling. The best communities grow from their founders’ passion.
In the early 80s in a period of remarkable reinvention — Mom dropped everything she knew to open a bookstore. She would build a community by sharing her love of books and ideas. Her college friend Beryl told me, “Your mother found the perfect job for her. At P&P, she had permission and in fact was encouraged to tell everybody what to read.” Liz Hersh said, “Carla either wanted to know what you were reading or tell you what she was reading. So why not open a bookstore?”
Now, people questioned the wisdom of her vision. Crown Books, Nobody reads, How will you make a living they said. Mom’s vision never wavered. She believed that community and bookstore were synonymous. Until her death, a community bookstore remained her greatest passion.
People, Passion, and Place. Physical spaces were of great interest during our childhood. Mom would schlep Eve and I to the most creative playgrounds or funkiest amusement parks. Why pull over to stay at that convenient hotel with central air conditioning and a big swimming pool when we could visit some off-the-beaten-trail known only to the 19others readers of an obscure already out of print guide to Concord, New Hampshire. No matter where we were in America our family had to bear witness to the great experiments in urban revitalization. Chicago, New York, Baltimore of course. But who knew Portland, Maine was undergoing a city-wide transformation? Moreover, what children knew the term “urban renewal” before their bar mitzvahs?
Speaking of bar mitzvahs, it was 30 years ago last March that I stood at this very microphone listening to our Rabbi say a few words about the bar mitzvah boy. As I stand here now, I can see my mother’s enormous smile beaming up from the very seats where my family sits this morning. Rabbi Abramowitz peered down at me that day and after concluding his standard material about this historic occasion, and planted in Israel, and my Soviet twinning certificate he added a personal editorial. “Aaron, you are a force to be reckoned with.” Mom loved this. Of course, she was the true and unique force to be reckoned with — and I do it mean with complete and total admiration. Well almost.
Mom and Dad raised Eve and me in this synagogue among this membership forming lifelong friendships with people who shared their interests, values and challenges. Deeply influenced by Tifereth Israel, she understood the value of physical place in organizing community. She nurtured the friendships born from the shared intellectual passions of this membership. Through these years in the 70s and 80s my mother began to see that many people needed more than churches and synagogues in order to congregate. She believed Washingtonians craved a space for intellectual renewal. But how to go about it?
This was the birth of Politics and Prose – the life’s work of two women. Mom’s one and only business partner and special friend Barbara Meade spoke eloquently about their success when they recently accepted as “lifetime achievement award” from fellow booksellers. Theirs was a beautiful union. Generous with each other, their staff, and customers, the result of their partnership is that superb bookstore. P and P is the 21st century standard for a community institution in Washington and a towering influence on booksellers worldwide. These women shepherded a renaissance of intellectual life in Washington that will continue for generations to come. Barbara, she could never have done it without you. Dad, Eve, and I thank you so much for helping Mom realize her dream. Our family will work hard to find the right people to build on your legacy. We promised Mom that.
Many experienced the power of Mom’s friendship. Known to be a voracious reader, she also collected friendships with colleagues, neighbors, and customers. The depth of feeling conveyed by so many of you in your calls and letters strengthened Mom’s resolve to live. She needed to see you, talk with you and touch you. She fed off your love even as she struggled to eat.
The Carla Manifesto would be incomplete if I neglected to say a few words about food. Food was Holly Street. Food was staff meetings. Food was holidays. Food was going on vacation and planning the next meal while eating the current one. Food was only baking, never, ever buying birthday cakes or holiday cookies. Food was love. Food was Mom and me.
25 years ago, I was readying to return to college after Thanksgiving.. Rain poured down outside. My father paced worrying about getting me to Union Station. The drive was 20 minutes and we only had 3 hours to go. Enter the force to be reckoned with wearing boots and soaking poncho. She marched past Dad and headed straight for the kitchen.
Mom, what are you doing here?
I needed to come home and make you Turkey sandwiches.
Hmm. That’s a Good point. You did need to do that.
Oh Come on Carla, he could have made his own…
David
Yeah Dad. Why are you getting involved in this? Mom can I have some French toast before I go.
Carla I’m going to pull the car around back.
Crisco dumped in pan for challah French toast. How many sandwiches Air?
Well is there enough turkey Mom? Did you make enough? I don’t want to deprive you and Dad…
I’ll make you 4.
Mom, did you make me cream cheese brownies too?
Of course, I already packed those in two layers of tin foil so they’ll stay fresh.
Dad returns: Carla, where is the car? I want to take yours because its safer on a wet road.
You’ll have to use the Mazda. I left the Buick on 16th street.
What do you mean you 16th Street?
Well, I had a fenderbender?
You did?
Where’s the car?
It’s, totaled.
Totaled?
Yes, as in it can’t be driven totaled.
Ohmygod, Are you alright?, How did you get here?
I’m fine grumpher. The police came. They gave me a lift up here.
Mom, why didn’t you stay with the car?
Don’t be silly. I told the police I had to make your turkey sandwiches.
That is why food is love. Love from the force to be reckoned with. Car accidents, Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com could not deter her.
People, Passion, Place, Partnership and finally love. And there was no love greater than Mom and Dad’s. On vacations, they lay side by side on a hotel room double bed with a large stack of books resting on the night table silently reading while holding hands. They didn’t need to talk, but they did. My parents talked all the time. They modeled marriage for Eve and me: Enjoy each other’s lives, interests, friends, and families.
This past summer, I kept asking Mom – Why was your marriage so good? She said,” Oh Aaron it’s such hard work. We were lucky.” I asked her what that meant, and she looked at me with those still twinkling eyes unable to find the words to describe the power of this love. I know it’s hard to believe, but when it came to their relationship, Mom was speechless.
For the past 10 months, Love fueled my father’s steadfast commitment to Mom’s well-being. Dad, all of us, most of all Eve, Richard, Nina, and I marvel at your capacity for care giving. Your grace and compassion inspire. People who love you surround you. Remember, it will take a community to survive Mom’s loss. We stand at the ready. You have far more to give as a father, grandfather, mentor, teacher, and friend.
Mom loved all of us especially Eve and me. Like many families, we grew up close, drifted, reconciled and evolved. Sometimes Mom’s capacity for love could overwhelm those closest to her. I can think of a colleague, sibling, close friend or even a son who periodically requested space, but not this year. This year Mom’s magnetic power drew us back to her. We maximized our time. Down to the very last day, we held her hand. We wept as she declined and finally we mourn her loss.
My mother’s monumental capacity for love and friendship might seem impossible to replace. We must honor her by supporting and nurturing the things she cared about most. That’s you the people —from her 100-year-old mother to her grandchildren — Ry and Georgia. My wife Nina frequently reminds me that love is all that matters. Please honor my mother’s memory: Support your local communities and love the people in your life with an enthusiasm worthy of the Carla Manifesto.
In High School A friend moved in with us
Here is what can happen when you help young teenagers with dysfunctional homes.
Lasting Impact
Submitted by JB Salganik on October 12, 2010 - 5:05pm.Carla and David helped me get my life on track at a very crucial point in time when I had no one else to turn to. Since then, I have tried to live by their example; fearless in the white light of justice, first as a journalist and then as a public school teacher in Baltimore. In the years since, I have helped hundreds of inner-city kids against all odds become scholars and professionals, many earning total scholarships to elite colleges, all stemming from the love and support the Cohens showed me years earlier. I have also never forgotten for a moment the affection and teamwork between the two of them which I saw for the first time in my life as a guest in their home. In many ways, the model of their marriage formed the basis for my own future happy, loving, and supportive family; breaking a cycle of dysfunction that went back generations. I have no idea where I would be today if I had not met such kind hearted and wise people, but I am sure my life would not be nearly as enjoyable or as helpful to the rest of society as it is.
From my Friend Jonas Salganick on politics-prose.com/carla
“It Was Fun”
Without the Major League Baseball playoffs, I’m not sure how we would have weathered the weekend my mother died.
Mom drifted in and out of a comatose state in her final three days. After my sister used her most persuasive lobbying skills, hospice nurses and doctors arrived to increase massively her dilaudid, but abdominal cancer is very painful.
I returned to Washington after 24 hours in New York. My plan was to attend my brother-in-law’s wedding and then fly to Washington, but I never felt right and spent most of my time staring into space. Nina saw it right away and encouraged me to go back to DC.
The preceding night was exruciatingly difficult for Eve and Dad. My father picked me up at Union Station and said, “I’m glad you’re back. We have beef ribs for dinner, but go see Mom before you eat.”
My uncle Mark, a celebrity chef, who is missing Thomas Keller’s 55th birthday to speak at my mother’s funeral, has fed my mother and family for months. In the final week, he was here twice a day and prepared nearly every meal.
I walked in the house, sprinted up the stairs, and entered Mom’s room. Even in the two days her color had grown paler and her breathing more labored. I stroked her hand and said
Mom, we’re all here. We love you, it’s time to let go.
She would have none of it. Instead she raised her eyebrows and moaned a little louder.
Three days earlier, I told her how proud I was of her bravery. She denied her terminal illness for several months, but over the summer started to speak more openly about death. She turned her head towards me and whispered, “Aaron, I’m not sure I’ve really come to terms with this.” Then she grinned. I knew she wasn’t ready.
By the time I returned, she was rarely conscious. Nerves were frayed. My sister who was working the pace of an intensive care nurse with only one patient — was exhausted. We worried about Dad’s ability to sleep but he refused to leave her. They slept side by side to the very end. Dad on the foreign side of his queen sized bed and Mom in a hospital bed. They often held hands through the night.
At times Mom would babble incoherently. Occasionally, the sentences were clear, but made no sense. Dad kissed her Saturday night. She kissed back and with an energy surge frequent to those near death told him the simple, poetic truth: “It was fun.” These were her final words.
Sunday my uncles surrounded us, Mom’s pain grew worse and I found myself unable to spend more than a minute with her. All throughout this process, I tried to stay steady and keep our family loose. But Sunday I started to lose it. I watched baseball, football and frequently checked my fantasy teams. I went upstairs, but I couldn’t say anything. I covered my ears when I heard mom moaning because Eve was changing her position in bed.
Renee, our superhero hospice nurse reminded me,
“Sons really have trouble watching their mothers die. It’s the daughters who do the best work. Don’t feel bad.”
The Redskins pulled out a squeaker.
Mom’s brother Frank and his wife Nina found all the amazing food in the refrigerator and pulled a dinner together. Mark arrived with a cake. You see, Sunday 10/10/10 was my father’s birthday. Towards the end of the evening, Eve put a candle in the cake and we sang Happy Birthday. He turned 74, the same age as my mother. For the first time in 50 years he returned to his wedding weight.
Sunday night found Dad rooting for his hometown Phillies as Mom settled into a pain-free, calm sleep.
When we woke up the next morning, I heard Mom’s shallow, moaning breaths a floor away. I started to get dressed when Eve called me. Then Dad called me more forcefully and I tumbled down the steps into their room.
Mom had died.
Dad was shaving, Eve was preparing her morning care, I was getting dressed and she just let go. Eve felt for a pulse and I lay down next to her to try the same. My heart was racing so I couldn’t figure out what was happening. Was it my pulse or hers? Her chest was still and finally her face relaxed.
Death is peaceful; perhpas because dying is its opposite.
We spent 15 minutes with her body, largely in silence. Then we picked up the phones and started calling family.
Milestones
Well now, everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back
Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty
And meet me tonight in Atlantic City
-Bruce Springsteen “Atlantic City”
They stood for a third ovation as my mother rose from her table to leave her banquet. It was a long minute to walk the 50 feet to exit the ballroom. The applause remained constant. She was embarrassed, but they continued. Finally, she whispered to our host who promptly boomed out, “Carla wants you to sit down.” So they did.
The modern Las Vegas casino technology that masks the tobacco smell has not made its way to the Trump Marina in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The 70’s cigarette scent permeates the carpets and drapes near the rows of slot machines that are 98% empty. In the ballroom across the hallway, 150 booksellers and publishers gathered to honor my mother and her co-founder Barbara Meade with the Mid-Atlantic Booksellers’ version of the Irving Thalberg award. Publisher’s Weekly covered it this week.
Using her walker, my mother methodically made her way to a cocktail table where people arrived to congratulate and wish her well. Walking the long hallways in the hotel required immense energy. At 74 and owners of the most famous bookstore in the region, the P&P partners were treated like the grand dames of the ball. Nobody mentioned Mom’s illness, but their smiles and body language conveyed what we all thought: “We made it. She’s still with us.” She soldiered to get to this event.
Cancer patients need milestones and our family pointed to Thalberg all summer. After my grandmother’s 100th birthday in May, the next milestone became my son’s 10th birthday. She might have visited New York, but she was hospitalized that week with an infection. In August, Atlantic City felt years away. Now, we quieted before she spoke.
Mom alternates between moments of cogent eloquence and stream of consciousness prose that would not make for a good acceptance speech. Mom was necessarily brief. She spoke for maybe a minute focusing on a single motif:
It’s fun to be here. I’ve always had fun. It’s fun for me to see you and I hope you have fun selling books.
Barbara spoke movingly about her 26 year journey with Mom and how well things had turned out. She urged the young booksellers in the room to consider partnership and find ways to work together. 3 minutes and two themes: Fun and Partnership
As we started eating our salads, one of the store’s most senior managers, Mark LaFramboise introduced a new award that would be named in honor of my mother. The Carla Cohen award will be given to the book that most reinforces the right to free speech in society. Pretty heady stuff. Another standing ovation.
People stopped by the table to offer us help with the search for new ownership of the store. Friends bent down to give her kisses. She remembered all the faces and many of the names. People love her and many of them (especially the women) expressed it.
I scouted high and low for comedic material about the evening, but the search turned up nothing. The story feels increasingly cinematic — a real-life tearjerker, a celebration of institutional endurance, and personal resilience.
Independent bookstores are an endangered species, but, so too, are Borders and Barnes and Noble. Politics and Prose has a soul. To think it will die because of the kindle/Ipad revolution is to view the world through the prism of a spreadsheet or an Ipad App. Independents are threatened, but they don’t have cancer.
During the dinner, Mom told us that she wanted to keynote the booksellers Winter Institute — an Academy to study their craft. We have our next milestone. It’s 4 months away.
Special thanks to Ben Hunter who reminded me of the Springsteen ballad in the epigraph
