Miles and miles of books

WEEK 33

Some might say it’s a crime that in the more than 1,800 days since I moved (part-time) to New York City, I’ve never set foot in Strand Book Store. I love books. I love local bookstores. And this place in particular is steeped in neighborhood history.

I’ve also never attended a book reading or book launch. I’ve listened to painters describe their inspiration and process for a particular work. But never have I heard an author read their own words in print.

The Strand hosts numerous in-store events, and the best of the best show up to talk and read. All that’s required is purchasing the book or a gift card. A win for all.

So, for this week’s “first,” I chose the release event for a new illustrated book by Patricia Marx and Roz Chast, You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples. Irena joined me.

I knew nothing of these two before seeing the event advertised. The reading turned out to be more stand-up and less actual reading — not surprising once I learned their pedigrees. Roz is a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Patty is a staff writer there and former writer for Saturday Night Live, although she was quick to point out that Roz is an excellent writer herself. They’ve been friends and collaborators since the late 1970s, and they began the evening sharing their friendship origin story: Roz was the illustrator of a piece Patty wrote. Patty’s mom didn’t care for the essay but liked the illustration so much, she encouraged Patty to call the illustrator. That apparently never happens. Patty, always one to do what her mother says, met Roz, and they’ve been on a “play date,” as they described it, ever since.

But first a bit about the store. We entered from Broadway into a vast space, the double-height ceilings filled with old wooden stacks. It’s a bookstore so you expect to be surrounded by books. Here, you are swallowed by titles, though not necessarily in a bad way. You realize quickly that paper rules in a space with a proclaimed 18 miles of books. Strand opened in 1927, a few blocks from its current East 12^th Street location in an area that had been called Book Row covering — get this — six city blocks and 48 bookstores. Is that even possible? Today, the granddaughter of the founder runs the business, which makes it all the more romantic.

We made our way to the third floor Rare Book Room. It’s not a particularly stylish or dressy space although a few rows of hanging twinkling lights tempered the bite from the fluorescents. Picture a haphazard library in your grandparents’ house, the shelves lined with leather-bound volumes, a few busts of dead writers scattered around, locked cabinets with out-of-print treasures. The crowd, however, delivered. A bit older, all sporting that only-in New York City look: Upper West Side intellectual, most certainly left leaning, hair a bit kinked and likely to compost if their co-op allowed it. And huge Patty and Roz fans.

The pair presided over the event with an endearing quirkiness that made it seem like their first public outing. They walked to the front of the room carrying baby blue ukuleles. They futzed with their mics. “How does this clicker work?” They kicked things off with amateur looking slides, beginning with a photo of each of their parents (the first “couples” they knew) and stories of the hilarious bickering that defined their childhoods – and inspired the book. They proceeded to introduce themselves through photos of famous world leaders and events with their heads photo-shopped into the scenes, riffing in an improv kind of way. “That’s us at Woodstock, facing the wrong direction,” said Patty. “No, everyone else was,” argued Roz.

Before taking questions, they read captions from the book’s pages and had us in hysterics, then upstaged themselves by singing original political and life-advice anthems strumming along with their ukuleles. “We formed a two-woman indie-band called Ukulear Meltdown,” they told us. “Back in the day, it was a sensation.”

It was such a delight to watch their friendship on stage during our hour together. They clearly crack each other up. I wished I could put them in my pocket and bring them to every family gathering.