Jim Lynch, author of Truth Like the Sun and two other novels, who lives in Olympia, Wash., writes:
Jane Laclergue was the first person I ever introduced myself to as an author. In 2005, I popped into her tiny Fireside Bookstore in Olympia, Wash., to tell her nervously that my first novel was coming out soon and that it was set around here and that I lived nearby.
She glanced at her computer and told me she'd ordered two copies, which she said was plenty, considering how difficult it is to sell hardbacks. I strolled out thinking, Wow, this is going to be hard. But Jane read The Highest Tide that night, called me the next day and started ordering it by the case.
A few months later, she sent me a note congratulating me: The Highest Tide was already Fireside's all-time bestseller--having just surpassed the children's book The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts.
Over the next seven years, it felt that we were almost in business together, until she announced a couple weeks ago that Fireside was closing and that her 25-year run of bookselling was coming to an end this month.
I think most authors see indie booksellers as their saintly allies in a daunting enterprise. But some of them, especially local ones we see regularly and who stick with us through multiple books, begin to feel like accomplices and friends and closer to us perhaps than our distant agents, editors and publicists.
Jane always stacked my books front and center on the table so that you couldn't miss them when you entered her bookstore, which was smaller than most hotel rooms. She was an old fashioned handseller, informative not condescending, persuasive not pushy, though people joked she'd follow customers out the door pitching my books.
Nobody has ever put so much value on my signature. People expect to get signed copies of your book here, she'd remind me, urging me to swing by at my earliest convenience. And whenever I showed up, no matter how disheveled, she'd make it sound, to her one browsing customer, as if Richard Russo or John Irving had just walked through her door.
And while I'd happily do it myself, she'd prefer to open the books to the title page for me to sign, even though there was no line of people waiting for signatures, even though I was just savouring my writing break with her. But Jane didn't know any other gear than the efficient and gracious bookseller. She'd show me the new Indie Next list and pass along advanced copies of novels she knew I'd enjoy. She'd give me her prediction on which novel was going to win the Pulitzer this year, and she'd share the travails of trying to stay out of the red, but she was almost always upbeat.
When I had good news--a new book coming out, a possible movie deal, or some sort of award--I'd look forward to sharing it with her. When I won, Jane won. She sat with me at a banquet table to accept a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award. And after throwing book launch parties for my last two novels, she'd be beaming from selling so many new hardbacks. Well, Mr. Lynch, she'd tell me, you just helped me pay two month's rent.
On the last big night in her bookstore, some 50 loyal customers somehow jammed inside to listen to author Jess Walter be interviewed by me about his new novel. Jane was as accommodating and gracious as ever, not once mentioning in her lingering Carolina accent that she'd be putting up going-out-of-business signs two days later, not wanting to take away from the event or draw attention to herself.
Jane taught me how hard the book business is and how fast it's changing. Increasingly, she told me about customers who, while browsing her new titles, admitted they now bought all their books online or had switched to e-books and absolutely loved them. Still, I wouldn't allow myself to imagine her retiring and getting out.
I wish I could afford to do the Ann Patchett thing and step in and keep Fireside rolling. But the truth is I wouldn't be anywhere near as good at it as Jane was. (And, no doubt, not as good as Ann is either.) It obviously takes more than a passion for books. Bookselling demands its own special skillset, and Jane Laclergue had it in spades.