Struggles Continue for New Orleans/Gulf Coast Booksellers -- Part II

Nearly a year after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, for many of the area's booksellers life is still far from normal, and each day comes with a sense of uncertainty. This week, and last week [1], BTW talked to several booksellers who are facing difficult decisions regarding their businesses and others, in sections of New Orleans not heavily damaged by the storm, who are back in business, with sales going well.

Maple Street Book Shop & Maple Street Children's in New Orleans

Maple Street Books and Maple Street Children's, which are in Civil-War-era buildings that have withstood many raging storms, suffered no leaks or flooding as a result of Katrina, and booksellers returned to find the stores stocked just as they had been left. Both stores reopened in mid-October.

Carol Antosiak of Maple Street Book Shop, said, "The store is doing really well. Our location uptown did not receive as much damage. It wasn't flooded and a lot of the customers are back. Things are pretty good."

As for New Orleans, Antosiak noted that "parts of the city seem really normal -- uptown, coffee shops and restaurants have reopened -- and other parts are a wasteland. There are vast areas, blocks and blocks of empty houses. A lot of tourist spots look normal, but it's not normal. It's not the same for a lot of people."

Next door, at Maple Street Children's, Cynthia Dike reported that business is "a little on the flat side, but I am happy to have flat instead of down." She noted, "We had a lot of problems getting shipped in December because the UPS station was under water. So, we sold off what we had, and I didn't order a lot -- I'm trying to catch up on bills."

Schools in the area reopened in January and, as a result, many residents came home during Christmas, so "we had a really good December,." Dike said. And while sales were flat following the holidays, they were up for the past month, she noted.

Dike said that life in New Orleans "feels normal now, [in that] abnormal feels normal. There's a lot of sadness out there. It's hard to rebuild a house ... there are a lot of people in ... FEMA trailers or apartments. There's a lot of unhappiness around, but people are trying to make the best of it."

Garden District Bookshop in New Orleans

A couple of months after Katrina, Britton Trice of Garden District Bookshop told BTW, "We were very lucky and had no damage, and in our neighborhood you don't see a lot of damage. But we're a little island surrounded by a sea of destruction." The bookstore reopened on October 10.

Almost nine months later, Garden District's Deb McDonald described business as "very good for us, very busy. All of our events seem to have more people than they had before. The ALA was in town [for its convention], and they were magnificent." She said the store provided off-site book sales for a number of speaking events at the New Orleans convention center, including events featuring Madeleine Albright, Anderson Cooper, and Cokie Roberts.

Overall, McDonald said that "locals have been very supportive of shopping locally and keeping dollars in New Orleans. There are a tremendous amount of local books that have come out [regarding Katrina]. One woman is buying every Katrina book to leave for her grandchildren, and there are some people buying one for each of their children."

Octavia Books in New Orleans

Tom Lowenburg's home and his store, Octavia Books in New Orleans, came through Katrina intact, save for some minor damage to his bookstore's building, and he told BTW that "customers appreciate us being there" and that he is "staying very busy."

Just within the past five days, Octavia has had six or seven book signings, all of which were very successful. At a recent Anderson Cooper event, the store sold 700 books, Lowenburg reported.

Sales have been good, Lowenburg said, though he is not surprised at how well the store is doing in the wake of Katrina. "Of course, in October, you open the store and you don't know what to expect, but we sensed a need for us. We've had a very good, strong response. We have loyal customers." Presently, there are more people living in the area than before due to the "shortage of housing in the city," he explained.

In other parts of New Orleans, it's a different story. "Things are very difficult for people in the city right now," Lowenburg noted. "City services are very poor -- garbage pick-up is one time a week, rather than two times.... There are vast areas of the city that are depopulated and people [are living] in FEMA trailers ... trying to get their homes back. There's a shortage of labor because people are in other parts of the country right now. There are things that are working smoothly, while others feel like they're held together by band aids, duct tape, and rubber bands."

DeVille Books in New Orleans

DeVille Books, which is located in the Central Business District, took on about four to five inches of water during the hurricane. And while, by Katrina standards, this wasn't a lot of water, soon after, mold began to form on the store's one sheetrock wall, which contained the store's fiction section, and eventually the store had to be gutted.

Nine months later, things have changed at DeVille. According to the store's new manager, Winter Randall, the interior of the store, "as far as what the customer sees," is completely fixed up. The employee section, restrooms, and small storage area still have bare sheetrock, she said. Moreover, staff has changed: last month Joanne Sealy took a job at Faulkner House -- where she had worked for 10 years prior to coming to DeVille -- and Randall took over her position at DeVille.

The bookstore officially reopened on December 1. "Christmas was very good, about 60 percent [compared to pre-Katrina sales]," said Sealy. "The locals were good about buying locally. And after that, [sales] were still at about 60 to 70 percent [of pre-Katrina sales]. One day would be great, one day not."

This is Randall's first foray into the world of bookselling after stints in publishing and editing. As for why she chose this moment in time to become a New Orleans bookseller, she stated, "I'm local -- born and raised. When I came back I had a job, but I ended up being unhappy there.... The opportunity [to work at DeVille] presented itself.... It was an opportunity for me to participate on a daily basis in the economic and spiritual rebuilding of my city. Before, I was in my office and I kept a couple of people happy.... People here have lost book collections. I can be here everyday, participate in the local economy, and help in the revitalization of the city ... and do something I love and be good at it?... I'm determined to do what I can for the city."

University of New Orleans Book Store

While the University of New Orleans (UNO) Book Store was damaged to a certain extent by water and mold, the bookstore's biggest blow came in the storm's wake. Carl Linn of UNO Book Store said that the store was attacked by looters and that the damage was "extensive ... what they didn't steal they tore up." All told, UNO suffered between $600,000 and $700,000 worth of damage.

Following the storm and the looting, Linn explained, it was as if UNO was on an island, with "all the surrounding neighborhoods wiped out. There were no local businesses to speak of." In the last three to four weeks, a drug store a Burger King, and a grocery store reopened in the area.

UNO reopened its doors in late January, and, less than a year later, Linn said the store was "pretty much operational, though not back to normal." He stressed, "I must say that [publishers and vendors] were extremely cooperative. No shipments were held up."

Though the store is open, Linn noted, "We are concerned over enrollment [at the university], in kids coming back in the fall. There's virtually no place to live out here."

Catholic Bookstore in New Orleans

The nonprofit Catholic Bookstore had been located in the basement of a building owned by the archdiocese. During Katrina, the building was flooded and the store's inventory destroyed. The store subsequently rented a trailer and is now situated across the street from its previous location.

When asked how things were going for the bookstore, Ann Komley replied, "Hard to say. It's a struggle: some days good, some days dismal."

On Saturday, June 24, however, the store did very well. Catholic Bookstore had a used book fair, selling books that customers had donated, and had a "pre-Katrina" kind of day, Komley said. The fair also brought customers into the trailer, where sales were brisk. "We did three times as much as usual." Additionally, the book fair let residents know the store was open.

Overall, the summer has been slow in terms of sales and traffic, which Komley said is not a surprise. She noted that, at present, she does not know how long the store will remain in the trailer. "We're the bookstore for the Notre Dame Seminary so we have to be somewhere in the vicinity," she said.

About the rest of New Orleans, Komley said, "The downtown areas are fixed up pretty good, but outside of that, many residential areas are in bad shape. The National Guard is here ... that will be a big help. Looting is a problem." On the plus side, she noted that the traffic lights in the area are working and the local gas station has reopened, as has a fast-food chain. "It's not hopeless at all, but there's a long way to go," she said.

A common thread through each of BTW's conversations with area booksellers was their expression of gratitude to the bookselling community for their support. As Susan Daigre of Bookends in Bay St. Louis, who made the tough choice not to reopen her bookstore, said, "So many people e-mailed ABA [following the hurricane] looking for me.... To know that the bookselling community was still in place -- it's really what got me through." --David Grogan [2]