BOOK ’EM, OTTAWA
One business and its novel fight with coronavirus
When co-owners Vaughn MacDonald and Steven Yong locked up their Black Squirrel bookstore and coffee shop at the end of the day on Monday, they did so with heavy hearts and great uncertainty.
Like countless small-business owners, their livelihoods, and those of their employees — about a dozen, in the case of Black Squirrel — were being tossed into the maelstrom of the novel coronavirus outbreak, to be resumed at some future date.
MacDonald and Yong certainly don’t know when that might be, but they are keenly aware that the longer this pandemic persists, the greater the likelihood that businesses like theirs won’t survive, as ongoing expenses such as rent and business loans and car payments begin to eat away at savings that are no longer being replenished by any sort of income.
But what they do have is a loyal customer base, entrepreneurial ingenuity and a store full of books — about 30,000 of them. And so they, along with store manager Joe Zador and MacDonald’s partner, Kristyn Hollinshead, the latter having been laid off from her own retail job this week, have come up with a novel way to battle the novel coronavirus: with novels (and, admittedly, other genres of books).
They started a home-delivery service, with customers ordering mystery packages of used books — four for $20 or eight for $35. Customers can select any genre they’re interested in — mysteries, fiction, history, self-help, children’s books and so on — or simply order a surprise box. With either option, customers have no idea of what titles they’ll receive.
“This is like Christmas,” said Sabrina Marques, the first to receive such a package Wednesday as she excitedly opened the box Zador handed her outside her Little Italy home.
Marques, who works at the Rideau Hall Foundation, is self-isolating for the next three weeks as a precautionary measure. Her partner owns a small business, she adds, “So we understand how important it is to support local, and that’s what I’ve been trying to do.
“So my purpose is two-fold: I want the books, and I want to help keep Black Squirrel going.”
Marques ordered four books, requesting literature. Her eyes lit up and she pealed, “Oh, wow!” at the first title, Charles Dickens’ Little Dorrit.
“Amazing,” she added. “I haven’t read it.”
Three more books followed: Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis; Ian McEwan’s The Children Act; and Alice Munro’s The Love of a Good Woman.
“These are fantastic choices,” she said, “I’m so pleased.”
Zador looked on, equally delighted. He puts together most of the orders, and takes his curating seriously.
“I like to include some classics of literature,” he said. “I put a copy of Plato’s Republic in one, just kind of central reading. It’s one of those foundational classics.”
Others he’s tucked into orders include Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet and Don DeLillo’s White Noise, the latter a personal favourite. The Munro book he packed into Marques’s order is his all-time favourite short-story collection.
“I try to include books that we’re fond of, that we talk about at the store. But I’ve also put in some funny, off-the-wall ones, like Seinlanguage, by Jerry Seinfeld.
“I’m taking time to think of books that we have sold to people in the past, and I like to keep it diverse in terms of authorship. A proper mixed bag of everything.”
The service, of course, is great for people who are self-isolating at home and have more idle time on their hands, and perhaps an as-yet-unrealized desire to finally tackle Finnegans Wake. It will also help Black Squirrel weather its physical closure.
“But as important,” says MacDonald, “it’s a way to stay in touch with our customers.”
The uptake by customers, he admits, has been surprisingly positive. “When we posted it (on Facebook and their website, blacksquirrelbooks.ca), we thought we might get a handful of orders, but in the first day we’ve had 75.” By Thursday, that number had ballooned to 200.
One customer, Meg Lonergan, was waiting outside her Bell Street S. apartment building with her boyfriend, coffees in hand, when Hollinshead pulled up in front of the building and Zador hopped out of the car with her books, as well as those for another customer in the same building.
A regular patron of the store, Lonergan says she saw the notice on Black Squirrel’s Facebook page. “And since we’re all going to be hunkered down for the foreseeable future, it’s always nice to have more books.
Leisurely reading in Lonergan’s case involves horror/thrillers, and she, like Marques, was enthusiastic about the books she received, none of which she has read before: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend; Koji Suzuki’s Rings; and Barbara Smith’s Canadian Ghost Stories.
“I’m excited,” she said of her small, newly arrived library.
MacDonald says he expects the store to be closed for at least a few weeks, as health authorities try to flatten the curve of COVID-19 infections. “We’ll see what happens after that,” he says, “but we’ll follow all the public health advisories.”
He doesn’t, however, imagine the business can survive a closure of more than four months before the coffers run completely dry.
But hopefully, says Hollinghead, things won’t reach that stage. “Customers value this place as a community space,” she says, “and we value our community.”
Only blocks from the store, Anne Louise Mahoney greets Zador, his arms laden with two boxes of books, on her Old Ottawa South front porch. A book editor by profession, and book lover and regular library user, she admits she doesn’t actually need more books. She has over 600 unread titles on her Kobo eReader. “But I thought, ‘These guys need a break to tide things over during this time where we don’t even know how much longer it’s going to go on.’
“’I can spend $40 and get some fun new books and tell everyone else to do it.”
Mahoney chose an order of mystery books and another of young adult titles, and, like Black Squirrel’s other customers, was anxious to open the boxes to see what was inside.
“This is very exciting,” she said. “It’s like when we ordered the last Harry Potter book, and Canada Post was delivering on a Saturday morning because we had pre-ordered it, and everyone was just psyched about it.” bdeachman@postmedia.com
I try to include books that we’re fond of, that we talk about at the store. But I’ve also put in some funny, off-thewall ones, like Seinlanguage, by Jerry Seinfeld.