Memorial Listing for A. David Schwartz

From the Friday, June 11, 2004, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Family, friends, bookselling colleagues across the country, and Milwaukee readers are profoundly saddened by the passing of A. David Schwartz, owner and president of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, on June 7, 2004.

David was born in Milwaukee in 1938, and grew up in the bookshop founded in 1927 by his parents, Harry and Reva Schwartz. He attended Bartlett Avenue School and Shorewood High School, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin - Madison with a major in history and English. After moving to New York, where he managed a Doubleday Book Shop, David eventually returned to Milwaukee and to his parents' shop, then on 5th and Wisconsin in downtown Milwaukee, where he assumed ownership before Harry's death in 1984. Twenty years later, there are four Schwartz Bookshops, with a national reputation for excellence in independent bookselling. Just last week, David and the shops were presented with Publishers Weekly's "Bookseller of the Year" award at BookExpo America.

In the course of his life, David saw bookselling grow from a network of mom-and-pop stores fueled by love of literature into an industry dominated by chain and online retailers who saw books as products. He shepherded the Schwartz Bookshops through these business challenges over the past 30 years by insisting on core beliefs and standards: that the book has meaning -- what he called "an ethical center" -- and can't be reduced to a simple commodity; that the cookie cutter retailers could be challenged by passionate, literate booksellers who gave great service ("put the book in the customer's hand!" he'd insist); that book people, from writers to publishers to booksellers to readers, formed a real community; that the ideas in books, in the hands of this community, had the power to effectuate social and political change; that bookselling is the highest and most honorable calling, and while financial profit is small, the "social profit" realized is deeply satisfying.

Though books were his religion, David had many other passions: traveling with his beloved Carol, reading with his grandchildren Aaron and Jeremiah, cooking, gardening, walking, wood splitting, baseball, wine -- in short, life. He loved Milwaukee and the urban streetscape. He adored Italy. He relished debate and conversation, especially about the intolerable inequities he saw in contemporary politics. He read deeply on the subject of racial inequality. He revered his mother, Reva Schwartz, an integral person in the rise of the Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop and who worked with him until recently. They shared a nearly photographic memory for all things literary and historical. Over the past year he wrote eloquently about the Patriot Act and what its provisions mean for civil liberties.

The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci could have been talking about David when he once advised "pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will." It is hard to believe that this man we loved, so full of life and its contradictions -- not a hero, but an ideal template of what a human being can be -- is now silent.

David's passing is mourned by his wife, Carol Grossmeyer; his mother, Reva; his daughter, Rebecca, and her husband, Timothy Truel: his son, Jason Niebler; his grandchildren, Aaron and Jeremiah Truel; many close friends; hundreds of past and present Harry W. Schwartz booksellers; bookselling and publishing colleagues across the country; and the thousands of Milwaukee readers to whom David sold millions of books over the course of his life.

Memorials to Community Shares of Milwaukee and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression appreciated.