Woodsburner by John Pipkin

Author:John Pipkin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary, Biographical, Fiction, Fiction - General, General
ISBN: 9780307455321
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-15T07:38:18.687000+00:00

Eliot Calvert's bookstore opened for business a year and a half before Margaret Mahoney became Mrs. Eliot Calvert. Once the sign was hung and the books displayed, Eliot found that running a bookshop had far less to do with books than it did with ledgers and receipts. Patrick Mahoney promised not to intervene, provided that the shop turned a profit, and he was true to his word.

Eliot was free to fill the shelves as he saw fit, and he sent orders to publishers and printing houses with the avarice of a nouveau riche collector. Books that he longed to read appeared by the cartload; writing instruments and exquisite papers arrived in carefully packed crates. He became the temporary caretaker of expensive folios that he could never have hoped to afford. He looked forward to the possibility of slow afternoons when he might sit on the high stool in the front window, reading the books in his trust, a living advertisement for the pleasures offered by his shop.

The wooden sign that swung above Boylston Street glittered with twelve-inch gold letters crowned with a pair of reading spectacles, “Eliot Calvert, Purveyor of Fine Books.” The sign was visible to clear-eyed readers from all the way across the new Public Gardens. Eliot thought of the tiny handprinted block letters on the white card tacked to the door of the cramped basement office that his father was sometimes permitted to use at Harvard. He brought his father and mother to the shop on the first day of business, and as they walked side by side beneath the sign he observed their reflections, multiplied across the checkerboard panes of glass at the shop front. No longer a timid observer of other men's accomplishments, Eliot stood square-shouldered to show that he had as much right to walk the streets as any man, an owner and shaper of the world in which he lived. Eliot's father walked stooped, hands clutched behind his back, and his mother clung to her husband's arm for support. Edna Calvert suffered from grievous bunions that forced her to take quick, short, painful steps, which made her appear as though she were forever running downhill.

“Faust,” Ambrose Calvert said appreciatively, as he rubbed the leather cover of the book Eliot had purposely left on the counter.

Edna ventured between the closely set bookcases, marveling at the packed shelves. “How do you afford so many fine books?” she called out to her son.

“They belong to the shop,” Eliot answered. “That is how a business works.”

His father looked around thoughtfully. “Still, I should think a man must first own what he intends to sell.”

“Mr. Mahoney has been most generous in his support.”

Eliot's father tapped the cover of the big book on the counter. “And does Mr. Mahoney support your other efforts?” he asked.

Eliot picked up the volume of Goethe and placed it on the empty stand in the window. “If you are referring to my plays, Father, Mr. Mahoney has shown great interest, but my writing requires little in the way of capital.

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