What Was The Name of That Book?

When a steel trap mind goes missing...

Illustration by Bob Eckstein, from The Footnotes from the World's Greatest Bookstores: True Tales and Lost Moments from Book Buyers, Booksellers, and Book Lovers

“Why are you leaving Alternative Books?” Ellen asked, tapping her pen on her desk while reviewing the heartfelt letter I’d hand-delivered a couple of days earlier, written in neatly printed all-caps with my favorite black Flair pen.

She’d called me in to meet because she loved what I wrote. It was my ode to being a voracious reader and described a list of my favorites from childhood all the way through to what I was presently devouring, that ever-present stack on my nightstand. I had enthusiastically demonstrated my passion for the written word by using the written word. I was a bookstore owner’s dream come true. Energetic, well-read, and salesy.

She was leaning back in her chair, sitting at her desk in the little office up the narrow flight of creaky tread worn stairs. She scrutinized me as I stood there; she hadn’t offered a place to sit, maybe because there was no place to sit. People were walking in and out with requests for reports, questions about inventory, and complaints about the always late daily UPS delivery. Getting upstairs without breaking my neck was a challenge. I zigzagged carefully as I avoided the stacks of books that needed to go up to overstock and even more stacks that were waiting to be shelved on the sales floor. Ellen’s desk was piled high with hardcovers, paperbacks, advance reader copies, catalogs, and promotional bookmarks from publishers. Amid the mess there was a small metal safe that sat to her right, door hanging open, stacks of cash spilling onto the counter where it lived. I wondered why it wasn’t locked; it seemed so odd and careless to me. The sight of all that cash made me salivate. A human Pavlovian response? Cash always does that to me. The allure of a wad of twenty-dollar bills gets my ardor up. Or was that reflex just a longing for something that was hard for me to get my hands on at the time? I was broke. I was almost always broke.

I’d heard from a friend that the bookstore was hiring, and the owner often paid her employees under the table. A cash business. I desperately needed a job like that, and fast.

I was leaving Alternative Books, a used bookstore closer to my apartment, because the hours were sparse and the dust and mildew from the old books was doing a number on my sinuses. The enormous back stock of books was stored in a damp dungeon of a basement. I often left the store at the end of my shift feeling sick, with a sore throat that became worse as my workday progressed. I couldn’t stay, as much as I enjoyed rooting through the boxes people dropped off when their old books were no longer useful to them but might be a treasure to a delighted customer looking for a specific title to add to their own bedside stack.

Ellen hired me and told me to show up the next day to begin my training. And yes, she’d be gladly paying me off the books.

I was excited and nervous and feeling quite grateful to know that I’d have some money coming in so I wouldn’t have to worry about asking my mother or father for another ”loan”––at least for a while. My disability payments were helpful, but they didn’t begin to cover the many expenses of living, and even though working for cash wasn’t terribly ethical, I had to do what I could to survive.

About a year earlier, I was released from the hospital after a ten day stay in a psych unit. I was there to receive ECT (shock treatments) with the hope of breaking the too-long depression that gripped me, no matter how many different medication cocktails my pharmacologist tried. ECT was a last resort measure that I agreed to because I didn’t know what else to do. Unremitting hopelessness was exhausting, and I needed the depression to lift. At that point, I was willing to do just about anything to make it better.

What I hadn’t understood was that after the initial hospital stay where I received 8 or 9 sessions of ECT, I needed to continue with outpatient maintenance treatments to prevent a possible relapse. For the first month or so, I was going 3 times a week and eventually tapered down to a monthly visit. I was still doing monthly maintenance when I started working at the bookstore. In total, I had ECT for a year and a half.

The other thing I wasn’t wholly aware of when I agreed to ECT was that it was highly likely to take a toll on my short-term (and long-term) memory. The doctors underplayed the likely side effects, making it sound like it would only be a short-term of short-term memory loss. I had terrible trouble with word retrieval, and I would soon find out that being a bookseller with a compromised memory was not going to be easy. It felt devastating at times to be missing my reliable brain. My ability to recall titles and authors was very, very wobbly.

I started the job, hopeful that I’d be up to it, and relieved to be out of the isolation of illness, back in the world among smart, curious, and very kind co-workers, one of whom I eventually appealed to for help.

I found myself immersed in the culture of book lovers, which is my idea of heaven, and although the store was owned by two very complicated people it was a great job. Both owners embodied fair amounts of craziness and love. They were unpredictable, mercurial, and almost always at odds with each other. Being on staff there was very similar to being a member of an extremely dysfunctional family. We had peacemakers, scapegoats, bad seeds. I felt right at home. But my need to hide my memory loss became an always present stressor.

I was good at faking it, at covering, for the most part, but there were times when a customer would want to hear more about a book’s plot and characters than I was able to share. If I was recommending a book I loved, I often found myself hedging when asked too many specific questions. I’d excitedly say things like, “Trust me, it’s just wonderful!” or I’d quickly scan the blurbs and parrot back what I’d just read. I challenged myself to sell books that were my favorites; the ones I knew well. I broke sales records for the store with those few select titles. Even with my deficient memory, I was able to say enough to make the sale. Friendliness and enthusiasm went a long way during more challenging moments.

It became more worrisome as time went by. Once customers finished the books I’d heartily recommended, they’d come back to me happy and hungry for their next reading adventure and want new suggestions from me. I was being perceived as a bit of a maven, not because of an encyclopedic knowledge of books; it was my ebullience and people-pleasing behaviors that were earning me that reputation. I couldn’t easily recommend a customer’s next read much to the dismay of my faltering brain.

I bonded with several other booksellers. There was one woman, a poet named Janice, who became a very good friend. We’d hang out after hours, go to dinner, have drinks and enjoy each other’s company. I felt safe enough with her to confide my secret. At the time it was information I shared very selectively. I felt shame about my situation and my history.

She listened, was so kind and asked if there was any way she could help when I’d get stumped. We weren’t always on the sales floor together or even on the schedule at the same time, but when we were we used a not very original signal we’d both remember. If I was lost in describing a book to a customer, I’d pull on my right earlobe, ala Carol Burnett, and Janice would stride over, join us and pick up my slack, her enthusiasm magnetic. I’d exhale a sigh, able to breathe fully again, relieved of my feelings of impending failure.

Eventually my memory began to creep back enough for me to manage on my own. I examined with a more discerning eye the “me” before ECT and the “me” after. Before ECT, I had a steel trap memory for trivia; book titles, author names, Broadway show tunes, and the like. That ability has taken a major hit that has never come back. I’m also in my sixties, so that is probably a component, as well.

In truth, I’d never been the kind of person who can describe books in a blow-by-blow way. I don’t remember small details, and I often lose the ability to retain the plot or recall how a story ends. I’m more of an experiential reader, deeply involved in a book while I’m in it, but when it’s over, a lot of the story evaporates for me. I think I’ve always been that way to some extent. Because of that I used to believe that I wasn’t as smart as other people. I’m the person who doesn’t want to be in a book club, I’ve tried; I don’t care to discuss the finer points of a novel or memoir with a gathering of highly opinionated people who want to showcase their self-perceived brilliance over wine and cheese and frilly finger foods. I just want to live in a temporary world that takes me outside the everydayness of life into a writer’s imagination. Then I move on to the next book. What I’ve integrated from each book lives within me, whether I’m consciously aware of it or not.

I don’t sell books for a living anymore, and over the years since 2001 when I first started the job at the bookstore, I’ve returned for a series of ECT on two more occasions when things fell apart. The last time I did it was in 2020, and I cut it short, when I realized my memory was being compromised again. I told the doctor I was finished, and when he asked why and sternly warned me against abandoning treatment, waving his red relapse flag, I told him that I wasn’t willing to lose my way again for an undetermined amount of time. He downplayed my concerns about memory, telling me that it wasn’t that bad, and it was temporary. I’ve never felt it was temporary, my memory improves, but I’ve always felt it was never completely restored. I asked him if he’d ever gone through ECT, himself. He said no.

I countered, “So, in this case, I’m more of an expert than you. Don’t minimize my experience.” And I walked away. My desire is to never have to do it again. I’ve found more effective ways of understanding and healing my bouts of depression, and the time between them has lengthened, almost to non-existence. I have many tools in place that I didn’t have before.

But the whole truth? If I needed to, if nothing else was helping, I’d probably do ECT again, after grappling with my ever-present resistance. Because it did help. The high cost of memory loss is real and different for each individual, but for me, the price I pay while suffering from depression is much higher.

Ellen Shapiro + Barry Samuels owned the store from 1978-2010.

Afternote:

I worked at The Golden Notebook in Woodstock NY from 2001-2007 and then rejoined the staff in 2011 when new owners came in to keep the love alive. I left bookselling in 2013 to establish my design business, but The GN has always been my home away from home. Read the history, it’s very sweet. And get your next great read there. They’ll ship anywhere!

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