Fact Meets Fiction: A Candid Conversation With A.J. Fikry

By Lauren Lexa

“Suspension of disbelief” or “willing suspension of disbelief” is a term attributed to the poet and aesthetic philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who suggested that if a writer could infuse a “human interest and a semblance of truth” into a fantastic tale, the reader would suspend judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative. Well, we’re not quite doing that here, but we’re coming close. Our interview is with bookstore owner A.J. Fikry, the leading man in Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel. So, suspend a little disbelief and enjoy this humorous introduction to A.J., the world of bookselling, and a most storied life — from the author best known for her YA works Elsewhere, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, All These Things I’ve Done, and In the Age of Love and Chocolate.

Q: You don’t like to read anything over 400 or under 150 pages. The ARC of your story is told in 258 — with no pictures. What do you make of that?

A: Plain good sense, I’d say. Over 400? Writer has often failed to make enough choices. I don’t want to read every fool idea that came into some writer’s head. Under 150? Novel may be underwritten. I want a NOVEL, not a synopsis of a novel, not a short story, not a poem hinting at a novel. There are exceptions to this, of course.

But listen, I was in a dark place when I said that, and probably a little hung over. And this pushy, albeit not bad looking, sales rep was forcing this skimpy, entirely unpromising ARC down my throat. I knew I’d have to say something extreme just to get her to stop talking.

Q: Daniel Parish, your brother-in-law, consoles you after Tamerlane gets stolen by telling you that people get too moony over collectible books, and that ideas are what matters — the words. Near the end of your story, you experience a loss of words. If you could go back and reclaim them, what words would you have said — and to whom?

A: Daniel Parish is a decent writer and an idiot. You can safely ignore everything he says.

I have not read the end of my story, and as a policy, I’m not certain anyone should go out of their way to read the end of their story. Based on your question, it sounds like it ends badly for me. I certainly hope you’re not saying the story turns maudlin. I hate maudlin.

I’m sharp-tongued, and I have had more regrets about what I did say than what I did NOT say. Have you ever come across the Burgess-coined term “tintiddle”? It’s basically a witty retort thought of too late. My problem has typically been the opposite of tintiddle. There are plenty of things I’ve said that I ought to have kept to myself.

Q: You say that you can tell a lot by what a person’s favorite book is. What are your three favorites and what does the choice say about you?

A: I used to say to my wife that, as a bookseller, I had to be a bit promiscuous about books. From year to year, from season to season, I had to pick new favorites. She would say that it wasn’t promiscuity, but optimism — the belief that at any moment, one might come upon a new favorite. In any case, I think a bookseller should carry four — at least four! — favorite titles in his heart at any given moment: a personal favorite, a favorite from the current season, a favorite from youth, and a favorite to sell that isn’t a usual suspect.

My favorite book to sell is The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. It’s more popular in Canada than here, and I find that it’s a great bridge for people who’ve read fantasy looking to segue into reading something more literary (or vice versa.) My favorite book from the current season-ish is Tenth of December by George Saunders, because it is daring and beautiful. My favorite from youth — well, I had a distinctly un-boyish attachment to The Secret Garden. My favorite from my slightly older youth is Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall, though the book I spent the most time with was my mother’s copy of The Joy of Sex. And my all-time personal favorite is either Old School by Tobias Wolff, because it is many books in one, or Golden Gate by Vikram Seth, because it reminds me that, on occasion, I do respond to gimmicks. (Golden Gate is entirely in sonnets.) What do these titles say about me? Probably that I’m a snob, and that I need to read more books by women.

Q: At times you contemplate what your life would have been like if you’d finished your Ph.D. in American Literature instead of opening an independent bookstore. In those moments, what do you imagine your life to be, and do you have any regrets that you didn’t finish your dissertation on “the depictions of diseases in the works of Edgar Allan Poe?”

A: Even reading the phrase “depictions of diseases in the works of Edgar Allan Poe” fills me with unimaginable despair. It seems a terrible joke that I let it get so far. I mean, who was I kidding with that topic? Honestly, I never even LIKED Poe all that much. So, no, I cannot say I have any regrets that I did not waste a single additional moment of my life on that particular endeavor.

The truth of it is, I was a terrible graduate student. I entered graduate school in English because I loved to read, but the kind of reading I did in grad school had very little to do with what I loved about reading in the first place. I am glad I became a bookseller because I suspect I would have ended up hating reading had I finished my dissertation.

Q: Your favorite short story is Raymond Carver’s What We Talk about When We Talk about Love. Why is that your favorite?

A: You’re very obsessed with favorites, aren’t you? I think it’s probably a perfect short story — silly word, perfect, but there it is. It’s part of my favorite subgenre of short stories concerning bleak-to-disastrous dinner parties. But I read What We Talk About… when I was 17, at a moment in my life when my mind was just realizing that there was such a thing as literary fiction and that writing came in styles. So, I suspect it is my favorite because of its own qualities, but just as much because of the moment in which I read it.

Q: If I were to classify the story of your life, I would put it in the fairy tale genre. A woman — who’s not a knight but works for Knightly Press — rescues a man in distress who has his share of deception, pain, and betrayal. They fall in love, raise a precocious and beautiful orphan girl who has been left in the man’s bookstore, and live happily until… How would you characterize your life?

A: My wife used to work for Pterodactyl before she went to work for Knightley. What would you have made of the story then, I wonder? I’ll tell you — I don’t much go in for fairy tales. And your characterization of me as a “man in distress” — it makes me sound like a man in a leaky boat in the middle of a hurricane ... OHHHH. Yeah, I was a little like that.

It has been a bit of a fairy tale, I suppose. All lives have fairy tale elements, though. Once Upon a Time, you’re born. Then, villains — some for real, some you make. A dash of tragedy. Love, if you’re lucky. Inevitably death.

In my mind, I am literary fiction, of course. I’d like to be a book like The Flamethrowers, but I suspect I’m more like Olive Kitteridge. I like both these novels, by the by.

Q: What had the most informative and influential impact on your life: the books you read or your bookstore customers — and why?

A: I refuse to choose, Wicked Interviewer! I cannot think of my bookstore customers separately from the books themselves. My life has been Island Books and the people who came through its doors; the context of my life has been the books I’ve read. We know what has happened to us by reading stories.

I once read that when printing and publishing first began, some people thought that printers should be given licenses like doctors. The act of printing something made it true, and thus, printing and publishing should only be undertaken by trusted community members. As a bookseller, I think of this from time to time. When a customer asks a bookseller what to read, the bookseller is like a doctor giving a prescription. This book passed across the counter has the power to heal, to enlighten, to delight, to inform, to change lives. You want to give the right one. It’s a responsibility. Maybe there have been years when I took this responsibility too lightly ... I fear I’m dipping my toe into a dangerously pretentious pool. Someone get me a glass of wine.

Q: What advice would you give to independent bookstore owners? To book lovers?

A: To independent bookstore owners? Carpet is a pain, but hardwood is noisy. Go with carpet, but get it professionally cleaned once a year. Comfortable chairs may be abused, but the goodwill is worth it in the long run. Greeting cards are not your enemy. Twitter may be the enemy, but it is also occasionally useful and amusing.

To book lovers? If you like reading REALLY good books, go to where the experts are. Get thee to a bookstore. If you want to read books recommended by a robot, you know where to go.

Q: Was it easier to have a life of reading or to read about your life?

A: Your questions seem to suggest that I am somehow less than real. This is disturbing. Has someone written a book about me? Why would anyone do that?

If the author knew what he or she was doing, if the author didn’t shy away from the ugly truths of my existence — I think of my binge drinking, depression, overall curmudgeonly behavior — I can’t imagine that it would be pleasant for ME to read about such matters. Obviously, I am going to have to choose the “life of reading.”

Q: The lesson of your life is ...?

A: Just one? I’m afraid I’m going to have to say something cliché. Maybe, you can never be too rich or have too many books. And the wife would want me to add this: Be nice to your reps.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (9781616203214, hardcover, Algonquin Books)

Reprinted with the permission of Ingram Book Group from Ingram’s ADVANCE.