VILLAGE VOICES

Tales from one of the world’s most recognizable bookstores.

From July 1982 to June 16, 2012, the Village Voice bookstore in Paris, which its founder Hellier named in homage to New York’s “emblematic newsweekly,” was the center of a community of writers and artists, a meeting place for “third wave” American expatriates, and a venue for readings and book signings. Referring to the many audiotapes she made of author events, Hellier creates a vivid, abundantly populated narrative of the bookstore’s history, in chapters grouped loosely by theme, such as the Holocaust, exile, Native American poetry, African American writers, writers from South Africa, Australia, and the UK. With brief biographical cameos for each author and photographs from author events, the chronicle reads like a who’s who of postwar Anglophone literature. Among the featured writers are James Baldwin; David Sedaris, who gave five readings; Canadians Mavis Gallant, who writes in English, and Nancy Huston, who writes exclusively in French; Diane Johnson, who set several novels in contemporary France; Don DeLillo, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Allen Ginsberg. Excerpts from audience questions give a sense of immediacy. One attendee, for example, asked Jay McInerney about the proliferation of drugs in his novels; another, about the rising tide of political correctness; Richard Ford talked about the relationship between writer and reader; Grace Paley was asked to comment about racism and sexism in America. In 2002, to Hellier’s delight, Susan Sontag asked to give a reading from her new book of essays. She arrived, not surprisingly, to a packed house. Toni Morrison, in France to promote the French translation of Beloved, had time on her book tour for just a signing. Regretfully, Amazon and the proliferation of online shopping forced Hellier to close the shop, but its spirit lives on in her memoir.

A pleasant array of warm recollections for bibliophiles.