QUARANTINED: Writing Madly, Gardening Wildly, and Dreaming of Southern Bookstores

Papa Bluebird and his mate rented out the tobacco barn.

The bluebirds are fledging their young this morning. They set up house together at the start of this pandemic, about the time my husband and I began cancelling our European trip, one painful (and expensive) component at a time. This was intended to be our first trip together overseas, ever -- the financial crash of 2008-2009 having dashed the plans we, as empty nesters, had begun to make once we were liberated from college tuition payments. It was also meant to celebrate the completion of my second novel for Algonquin, Troublefield, which is due out in May of 2021, if God and the virus are willing, while allowing for some enjoyable field research in the Yorkshire dales for Book 3. If there has been any silver lining to this lockdown it is that I was able to write for thirty-eight days consecutively in March and throughout April. No breaks! No socializing! No day trips! But now the gaping loss of our UK journey dims the prospect of summer. I consider the tens of thousands of aspiring vacationers around the globe who have had their plans dismantled in a similar way, and have now have lost their jobs as well as their hopes of travel, and feel sobered by the scope of this terrible predicament. It’s the Great Recession all over again, only with the threat of contagion pushing stress levels beyond what is bearable.

It’s critical to have a refuge at times like this. Twelve years ago my stress-reducer was the same as now: my garden. It beckons with mind-numbing manual labor in all seasons and weather; I can weed and chop and haul for hours at a time without thoughts of Covid-19 intruding. Now there is no limit to the amount of "bathrobe gardening" I may indulge in: these are the sessions that take place when I go out first thing in the morning with the dogs and a mug of coffee and spy a project that needs to be addressed. I dive in, despite the fact that I'm not dressed, and when I come up for air both the gardener and the bathrobe need a thorough washing-up. 

Alice and Zombie, my garden companions.

When I cease to garden and merely sit with that mug of coffee in the swing, there are birds to watch, going about the business of building their nests or feeding their young in every tree, dense shrub, or birdhouse. It’s infinitely reassuring, this ritual of mating and procreating, of getting the next generation off to a flying start – it reminds me that there will be a tomorrow, albeit a changed one, and it generates reflection on this responsibility we humans bear for the condition of our world.

In fact, it’s come as something of a shock to realize that my life during the pandemic is very similar to what my life was like before the pandemic.  Writers and poets lead lonely lives to a great extent, alone with our imaginations for long periods of time. (And I should point out that this is a choice, of course, bolstered by natures that seek solitude instinctually.) This became especially true for me after The Second Mrs. Hockaday was launched into the world and I began work on Troublefield.

By 2017 it simply wasn’t feasible to continue teaching English as a college adjunct-instructor. While I miss engagement with students, and was continually inspired and informed by their developing minds and unique stories, the requirements of grading nearly 140 papers per Comp section per semester as well as planning curriculum and meeting with students individually meant that I was working seven days a week, holidays included. There was little time to write a novel, let alone think about one. In terms of income as well as productivity, it made sense to withdraw from the university, and the months that have passed since I made that decision have been very productive ones. My husband continues to carry a full load at the college, but now that all instruction has shifted online, he’s joined me in lockdown and we’re finding it mostly quite endurable.

 

Tensions that arise during lockdown are usually resolved.

However, now that public life is denied me, what do I crave persistently? Public life. With a second novel in production I’m looking ahead to the book tour and wondering how much the literary landscape will be altered by the time it’s safe for stores to reopen and conferences to be convened again. I worry about some of my favorite small bookshops, their owners and key staff, improvising through this crisis and spinning endless plates in the air as their profit margins, already razor-thin, subside into nothingness. And while I am supportive of all independent bookstores, recognizing how essential they are to the financial health, literacy and viability of their communities, there are some store owners and staff who are so supportive of authors that you want them to do especially well.

TLB staff, owner Mary P. behind me

I feel this way about The Little Bookshop in Midlothian, VA, which I visited after taking part in the Virginia Festival of the Book in Charlottesville in February 2017. I’d been scheduled to drive to Richmond earlier in the day, but that event was postponed at the last minute and I was glad of it, because as soon as I arrived at TLB after my long drive from the city, owner Mary Patterson and bookseller Laura Edwards welcomed me with open arms and five-star treatment. The event was well-attended, with many of TLB’s “regulars” showing up and demonstrating that the shop, although only a few years old, already had a loyal customer-base who loved the collection of books Mary curated for the store. As I was leaving that afternoon to catch my plane in Richmond, Mary heard me say that I hadn’t had time to eat a meal that day. Before I could pack up and get back in the rental car, she and Laura magically produced a sandwich and cookies from some secret store, and sent me off well-provisioned.

Our much-loved former home in Wake Forest NC.

Another bookstore of which I’m especially fond is Page 158 Books in Wake Forest NC. My family and I lived briefly in Wake Forest, that small, historic town northeast of Raleigh, graced by towering oaks and containing, at its heart, a stunning early nineteenth century college campus. The college was ‘bought’ by the Reynolds family in 1951, when such things could be done, and moved to Winston-Salem. As the story goes, R. J.’s wife was determined to elevate the culture of that hardscrabble, cigarette-manufacturing, factory town and she did so, by acquiring a college, a symphony, an art museum, and so on. In doing so, she ensured that newcomers to NC would be confused in perpetuity, having a university named Wake Forest located in a city named Winston-Salem, and a Baptist seminary in the center of a town carrying the name of a distant college… 

We didn’t want to leave Wake Forest, or our two-story Colonial home close by the elementary school, but a changing job situation forced our hands. I still feel ridiculously sentimental about the place, so when we joined our daughter and her husband for Thanksgiving in their new home in Raleigh in 2017, I suggested that on Black Friday my husband and I drive a few extra miles up Highway 1, for old times’ sake. Once in town, I was pleased to see that, while much has changed in the twenty years since we’d lived there, the hardware store was still thriving, along with Shorty’s Hot Dogs. I knew we would have to make a stop at Page 158, out on Brooks Street where the Winn-Dixie used to stand. I’d heard from a fellow novelist that one of the owners, Suzanne Lucey, had expressed particular fondness for The Second Mrs. Hockaday, and had featured it as a ‘staff pick’ at one point. This was a store where I wanted to spend my money. 

Page 158 staff; owner Suzanne Lucey, in elf hat.

We were pleasantly surprised by how contemporary Page 158 felt, and how well-stocked it was, and had begun selecting some purchases when Suzanne’s husband, Dave Lucey, asked if he could help me find anything in particular. I explained who I was, told him that we’d lived in town years before, and told him the name of my novel. He smiled, stood back, and yelled to the back of the store, where there was a stockroom. “Suzanne!” he called. “Susan Rivers is here. Second Mrs. Hockaday!” There was silence for a few moments. Then a door flew open, and a woman wearing an elf's hat atop her curly red hair exploded out of the stockroom and galloped to the front of the store, throwing her arms around me. This was my introduction to the ever-ebullient, splendidly enthusiastic Suzanne Lucey.

Page & Palette's welcoming street corner.

I returned to Wake Forest for a literary event in 2019, and I’m certain I will go back again in the years ahead to look in on Dave and Suzanne. I hope to get back to Virginia to see Mary Patterson, as well, and to check in with Sally Brewster of Park Road Books, to whom I am eternally grateful for recommending TSMH to numerous Charlotte-area book clubs. When we’re released from quarantine, I hope to drop in on Betsy Teter at Hub City, which is the beating heart of upstate South Carolina’s literary world, to go back to Main Street Books in Davidson, which hosted a wonderful readers' event in 2017, and to revisit Polly and Julian Buxton in their elegant shop, Buxton Books, on the water in Charleston. I also dream of taking a road trip south to Mobile Bay, to the charming town of Fairhope, Alabama.

You can't miss Page and Palette, the bookstore on the main avenue, because that's where everyone gathers to eat ice cream and drink lattes and get book recommendations from Stephanie Crowe, P & P's friendly and spectacularly gifted hand-seller. What all these bookstore-owners and sellers have in common (as well as others I do not have space to name), is a powerful passion for the written word in all its forms, and a profound sense of mission in sharing their love of books with everyone who comes into their shops. They know they will never be wealthy running a bookstore – far from it. And in this horrible pandemic they are having to adapt to business models that are not only changing daily but hourly, as regulations shift to address the virus. And yet they persist, thank goodness! – because they are committed not merely to their books but to their communities. I am so grateful for them and all the booksellers like them. 

In the days before Covid-19, of course, bookstores, libraries and book clubs were also gathering places where readers could meet their favorite authors, and vice versa. For me, meeting readers has turned out to be the best, most unexpected benefit of publishing a novel commercially. I have met, presented to, or spoken with hundreds of smart, literate and unendingly curious book-lovers, and I am always uplifted by the experience. 

I've met hundreds of smart, curious readers at book clubs like the Tomato Pie group in Charlotte NC.

Deborah Branch Phillips, whom I met at an author-luncheon produced by Litchfield Books near Pawley’s Island South Carolina (L. B. is also on my short-list of favorite bookstores) is a stellar example of the ‘ideal reader.’ She heard me say during my presentation that I was working on a novel about mill workers in upstate SC at the turn of the century. After the talk, she volunteered to share some of the details of her mill-working ancestors. 

Deborah Branch Phillips, far left, gathered former Clifton neighbors to meet me.

When I managed to meet up with her a few weeks later in Georgetown SC, she surprised me by sharing a prized family scrapbook depicting generations of her family members who lived in the milltowns of Tomahawk* and Spartanburg counties. It was a researcher’s dream come true. She followed that act of generosity by setting up a meeting with me and several residents of the former mill town of Clifton SC, including her aunt, Gladys Kuester. Gathering with these generous people in a church meeting hall (on an afternoon when it was raining black cats, as they say) we enjoyed pound cake and punch while I listened to innumerable stories of lives lived by family members who worked at the mill and thrived in its close-knit community. There’s no substitute for that kind of authentic detail – it’s priceless!

Another remarkable reader is Emily Daggerheart, whose mother Tracy contacted me through Polly Buxton. Tracy and her 14 year-old daughter had missed my reading at Buxton Books, and Emily, an aspiring writer, was a fan of the novel. We eventually arranged to meet at a bagel shop in Charlotte, and even though it poured buckets that morning (why is it always raining in my stories?...) the three of us had an excellent time, sharing green chai and mutual sympathies. Meeting young readers who already love novels as much or more than I did at their age is an intensely inspiring experience. It means that books are still important. It means that stories matter. Perhaps they are especially important when society is out of reach for us, like now.

Selfie with novelist-to-be, Emily Daggerheart, and mom Tracy

I know the world will eventually return to a state that is closer to normal than what we have today, even if human contact will be curtailed to some degree. The birds in my garden point the way towards the resumption of seasons and the rediscovery of purpose. But will we emerge from this crisis as better human beings? More resilient? Reflective? Focused? More grateful for what we had pre-pandemic and took for granted?  This is what I hope for myself. On the day I am able to walk into a coffeeshop and take a seat among others of my species while the barista brews my flat-white, I will rejoice in being alive. I will rejoice and be glad on the day I may shake a stranger’s hand. Or stand in line at the post office. Or browse in a bookstore for as long as the money in my parking meter lasts, or sign books and stand close to a reader as she tells me about herself and what she loves to read.

For now, I watch the bluebirds fussing over their children. I watch rain slant across the garden. I am thinking about the next novel. And the one after that. I’m feeling grateful for the way books keep connecting me with the best kind of people.

###

The Little Bookshop:https://www.thelittlebookshopva.com. TLB is taking orders by phone and email for curbside pick-up Wednesday-Saturday, 12noon to 3p.m. 804-464-1244; info@thelittlebookshopva.com. They urge patrons also to buy audiobooks through Libro.fm, their audiobooks partner. libro.fm

Page 158 Books:https://www.page158books.com. Page 158 is doing delivery (only) at the moment, M-F, on local orders over $20. They also offer "grab bags," and jointly with SIBA (Southeastern Independent Bookstore Association) offer Reader Meet Writer, a series of virtual author events in May with well-known authors discussing their new books. Click on the website for this program to reserve a "seat." 919-435-1843; info@page158books.com

If you care about supporting independent bookstores, especially in desperate times like the current coronavirus crisis, contact your own local bookstore and ask about their curbside pick-up, delivery, and/or shipping policies.
 Books may also be ordered online through Bookshop.com, with a % of the sales going to independent bookstores in your region.