On the 10th Anniversary of Other People We Married
Written by Emma Straub
Ten years ago, I was working at BookCourt, handselling copies of Meg Wolitzer’s The Wife and John Williams’ Stoner and Kate Christensen’s The Epicure’s Lament. My collection of stories, Other People We Married, was published that winter, and I had a giant party at the store–likely the biggest book event I’ll ever have in my entire life, everyone packed into that glorious back room at BookCourt, which felt like the size of a football field, and is now (depressingly) a store where you can buy suits which are then sent to you in the mail. The book was published by Five Chapters, a brand new small press, and designed by my husband, with my handwriting on the cover. They printed two thousand copies–what seemed like an enormous amount of books–and I sold 800 of them at BookCourt. The book was my staff pick for an entire year, give or take, with the blurb “I wrote this book. Please buy it. I love you.” Other People We Married is a book full of hustle and ambition and hope and sweat and fear.
The book was sold at so many of my beloved indies–at Word, at McNally Jackson, at Community, at Oblong, at Skylight, at the Booksmith in San Francisco and the Booksmith in Brookline, bookstores that also welcomed me for events, and drew chalkboards and wrote staff picks and introductions, all the things that booksellers do that are so hugely meaningful to writers. My acknowledgements in the book were three pages long, and it is very satisfying to know and appreciate so many of those people even more now–my MFA classmate Emma Snyder, now the owner of The Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore, Allison Devers, now the owner of The Second Shelf in London, superstar literary cheerleaders Alex Chee and Jami Attenberg, the list is endless! When I went to those other bookstores, I brought home-baked brownies and wrote thank you notes. I understood my lifelong debt and allegiance to booksellers, and I wanted to make sure they knew it.
It was my job at BookCourt that made my story collection a thing that people wanted, and it was my story collection that made my career as a novelist possible. When the opportunity appeared for me to repay the neighborhood with another bookstore, my husband and I knew we had to do it. It is the hardest job we’ve ever had, and the most rewarding. Sometimes it seems more one than the other, but at the end of the day, it is always both.
At Books Are Magic, in our short life, we already have a few alumnae who have published books, and nothing gives me more pleasure. When our first published bookseller, Shira Erlichman, had an event for her picture book, she sang and played a toy piano. I wept with joy and pride. Next week, Liv Stratman will publish her debut novel. When I am having buying appointments for the store, and I see that a bookseller from some other bookstore has written a novel, I order copies for the store–always. How could I not?
To celebrate Other People We Married’s 10th birthday, I will be giving 100% of the proceeds from the book to BINC for the foreseeable future. Thank you, booksellers of the world, for giving me the chance to do both my jobs, and to BookCourt and Books Are Magic’s staff, past and present, for showing me how, over and over again.
