San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
LOVE LETTER TO S. F. SHOP THAT WELCOMED A TEEN
San Francisco graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier has grown in popularity with every new release. Her latest illustrated memoir, “Guts,” was the topselling book in the entire United States when it came out in October 2019, leapfrogging recent releases from Malcolm Gladwell and Stephen King.
But she still keeps returning to an aging school desk at Green Apple Books on Clement Street in San Francisco, which has sold thousands of signed books from Telgemeier since she moved back to the city in 2015.
“I had been a customer of theirs, probably starting in high school,” Telgemeier said. “I had a boyfriend who lived in the avenues, so when we were teenagers, we used to just bum around on Clement Street. Just many hours passed in the stacks at the bookstore.”
Telgemeier, 43, has supported independents throughout her career, and is thinking of them even more during a pandemic that has brought existential challenges to bookstores and comic book shops in the Bay Area. She appeared on The Chronicle’s “Total SF” podcast in late September — as part of an independent bookstore tribute series — to talk about how she draws San Francisco in her books, her early reading memories and the importance of independent bookstores as community spaces and supporters of art.
For more local bookstore tributes, including from romance novelist Jasmine Guillory, comic artist and writer Judd Winick, cartoonist Stephan Pastis, and children’s book author and filmmaker Jorma Taccone, subscribe to Total SF on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other streaming services.
Raina Telgemeier, on how San Francisco landmarks from Sutro Tower to Parkmerced apartments to Aptos Middle School ( her alma mater) keep showing up in her books.
It started with nostalgia. I was living in New York when I started writing these memoirs. I missed home so much, but I really didn’t know how to articulate that. … Finding ways to illustrate that was really satisfying for me. I found myself looking at old photographs and thinking, “Oh, my mom’s house. It’s so dorky, but I love drawing it.” It turns out
that this town is not like any other town. And I took it for granted until I was away from it and realized how much quirk and how much charm and how much delight it had.
On her decision to include the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in her first memoir “Smile.”
I get these cool letters and stories from parents and children, where the kids are the age that I was in the book. And their parents are my age, just because of the way the timing has worked out. … So suddenly the kid asks, “Hey Mom do you remember this?” And then the mom says, “Oh my gosh, let me tell you a story.” And then the kid’s mind is blown. “You were the same age as Raina when that happened, and Raina is your age now?”
Kids don’t believe I’m a grownup. When I walk onstage they’re like, “What, how old are you?” … ( But) I like that it opens up that conversation. I like ( that) kids and parents are able to put themselves in each other’s shoes, and talk about an experience. It just sort of comes alive for them.
On her first memory as a reader.
My parents are both book people and writers and teachers. We had tons of books in the house … and I remember watching cartoons, and at the end of cartoons they would show ( the credits). I remember looking at what must have been people’s names, and thinking, “Someday I’m going to know what that says. I can’t wait to be able to decipher all those mysterious shapes.”
On buying her first comic book.
My father noticed that when I turned 9 or 10, I started reading comic strips in the newspaper and fell in love with them. We were at ( the San Francisco State University campus bookstore) and he appeared from behind a bookshelf and said, “Hey Raina, I have something to show you.” And he pulled out the first collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips. I was thinking, “There’s a book of Calvin and Hobbes? Are you kidding me?” And that was it. That was the beginning of that story. And nothing has changed. I’m still going to bookstores and buying comics.
On the interior of Green Apple Books in San Francisco.
It’s got a lot of square feet. It’s kind of like the Winchester Mystery House of bookstores. There’s not two distinct levels — it’s kind of like four and a half levels. There’s mezzanines and creaky stairwells and there’s scary hidden bathrooms and stuff.
It’s amazing. It just feels like a palace of discovery. You think you know what you’re getting when you walk into a bookstore … when you walk into Green Apple you think, “What is this magical mystery place?”
On running into other Bay Area authors at the bookstore.
I feel like ( Green Apple) exemplifies what it means to be a pillar of your community. Because they get to know their customers. They get to know the authors that live nearby. I will pass by other famous local authors when I’m there. Just shopping, you’re like, “Hey, Lemony Snicket, how’s it going? Hey Wendy MacNaughton, how are you?” It’s awesome. When you grow up with something like that in your neighborhood you’re always going to want to go there when you visit home. ...
Long live Green Apple Books. I hope they never leave.
“Kids don’t believe I’m a grownup. When I walk onstage they’re like, ‘ What, how old are you?’ … ( But) I like that it opens up that conversation.”
Raina Telgemeier, author