For 82 years, the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops were Milwaukee’s literary icons, “the books version of Miller or Pabst,” as one person put it. When the company closed its four remaining stores in late March 2009, devastating the city’s literary community, two of its managers opened new bookstores at two of the Schwartz locations: Boswell’s Book Co. (named after the Schwartz logo of 18thcentury diarist and author James Boswell holding a book) at the old flagship on Downer Avenue and Next Chapter in the suburb of Mequon.
Today, Milwaukee remains better known for its beer than its books. But Boswell’s and Next Chapter, as well as Books&Company in the suburb of Oconomowoc and the nonprofit arts organizationWoodland Pattern, lead a vibrant literary scene that uses the city’s proximity to Chicago to pull in big-name authors while distinguishing Milwaukee as an innovative bookish hot spot in its own right.
“You get good people because you make good events because you get media help,” said Boswell’s effervescent owner Daniel Goldin. One cool summer evening, Goldin was buzzing around his bookstore, an 8,000-square-foot shop mingling new and used books in a college neighborhood called the East Side. About 100 customers settled into overstuffed leather couches and folding chairs.
They were there to see author Alexandra Fuller, whose 2011 memoir “Cocktail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness,” a follow-up to the award-winning “Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight,”plunges into her British mother’s upbringing in Kenya and her own in war-torn Central Africa.
Mitch Teich, executive producer and co-host of “Lake Effect,” the local weekday magazine program on the NPR affiliateWUWM,was interviewing Fuller before the rapt audience, who shook with laughter at her wickedly funny anecdotes about her “racist, alcoholic mother” and “illiterate sister.”
As the conversation concluded, Goldin delivered a charmingly brazen challenge: He had to report back to the publisher the next day, and sales were mediocre, so if customers wanted more great authors like Fuller to come to town, they’d better buy more books. And so they did, lining up at the cash register and then at the signing table.
“I’m very committed to buying my books from here,” said AnnieMelchior, a yoga teacher in the dance department at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, who was first in line. “It’s that commitment to bringing in authors and keeping the literary community fertile.”
The creativity and energy of Milwaukee’s independent bookstores have drawn admiration from some Chicago booksellers, who wonder if their northern neighbor has become a publishers’ favorite.
“It’s something we always talk about when we (booksellers) get together,” said StefanMoorehead, manager and buyer at Unabridged Bookstore in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood.“We talk about, what are we doing to improve our profile again?”
He said he was struck when RachelMaddow, on tour in April for her book “Drift,” bypassed Chicago and went to Milwaukee for a conversation hosted by Next Chapter.
“That got to us—like, wait a minute, what do we have to do here to get noticed?”Moorehead said. He believes Milwaukee’s appeal to publishers stems fromits booksellers’ efforts as well as the Milwaukee media’s promotion of the city’s book events.
Ask Milwaukee booksellers about that perception, and they balk. They consider themselves to be riding Chicago’s coattails, piggybacking on the big city’s stream of visiting authors by suggesting that as long as they’re in the area, they take the hour-and-a-half drive north to Milwaukee.
“I would aspire to do what (Chicago booksellers) do in terms of events,” said Next Chapter owner Lanora Haradon, who sold out 2,400 seats at theMaddowevent in the Riverside Theater in downtown Milwaukee. Penny Simon, the Crown publicist for “Drift,” said they picked Milwaukee because it was a “great event request”— a copy of the book was included in the ticket price, guaranteeing sales—and they didn’t get a comparable request from Chicago.
For publishers, the best-case scenario is for authors to hit both Chicago and Milwaukee in one Midwest stop to reach two distinct readerships, said Todd Doughty, director of publicity for Doubleday. “The Chicago and Milwaukee-area booksellers are some of the smartest and best-read in the country,” said Doughty, so visiting both is “a win-win for the publisher and author.”
Lisa Baudoin, co-owner of Books&Company, founded 29 years ago, said they all work hard to promote the Chicago- Milwaukee connection. But sometimes she gets bigname authors Chicago doesn’t: Best-selling author Chris Bohjalian was there this month promoting “The Sandcastle Girls,” and KateMorton, British author of “The Forgotten Garden,” is scheduled for October.Morton has only six U.S. stops on her tour, and bothMequon and Oconomowoc are among them.
Patrons listen to a reading, above, at Boswell’s Book Co. in Milwaukee
