I’m Jim McKeown, welcome to Likely Stories, a weekly review of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Susan Coll’s novel tells the story of Sophie Bernstein, who runs an independent bookstore in D.C. It is also a store of enormous fun—along with some fights. The store also has a vacuum cleaner that breaks down at the worst possible moments. Bookish People is full of hilarity.
CHAPTER ONE. “To be clear, Sophie Bernstein did not throw a book at Zhang Li. // By the time the closing shift learned about the incident from the afternoon swing shift, however, the details of this otherwise routine meeting had become so exaggerated that to hear it, you might think Mrs. Bernstein had committed an act of aggravated assault on the young sales representative” (1).
QUERK III. “Sophie finds it hard to be alone inside her house, which is part of why she is here at five-fifty-two a.m. back in her Subaru up to the rear entrance of the store and retrieving a duffel stuffed with clothes from the passenger seat. // There was a time in her life—not long ago—when she longed for a little solitude. What with a young child, the store, all those books to read, the constant invitations to appear on panels at literary festivals, the book parties and fancy dinners with authors and publishers, and a husband who liked to chatter nonstop, loneliness had seemed a foreign concept. She had felt, at times, like she had chickens constantly pecking at her brain. Now the chickens are mostly gone, and it is harder than she could have possibly imagined to be alone” (52).
THE LINCOLNS. “Clemi arrives early. So much for working on her novel, which she is having trouble writing. She does not have to come into her office two hours before her shift; there is no expectation that she will put in more than an eight-hour-day, which means she could technically come in at noon, or even one-p.m., and no one would think she is shirking her duties. Her box and voice mail might feel like an ongoing emergency, but truly, everything can hypothetically wait. But then, what excuse would she have for being stuck midway through her latest draft? // Also, she needs to respond to the email from Mrs. Bernstein about canceling the Raymond Chaucer event. This request is fraught on several levels, and she would like to talk to Mrs. Bernstein before taking any action. No sooner does she have this thought than the phone rings, and Fiona, Chaucer’s publicist, is on the line” (85).
Susan Coll has written a fun and absorbing story with Bookish People. 6 Stars!
Likely Stories is a production of KWBU. I’m Jim McKeown. Join me again next time for Likely Stories, and happy reading!