Goodbye, Dutton's!

In time I made many, many great friends in L.A. It is my home now. But still, there are days when I need those special friends, when I slide into Dutton’s and just lose myself. Now, where the hell am I supposed to go on those days?

Bruce Bauman is the author of And the Word Was: A Novel.

A.M. Homes

I love Dutton’s. Not only did I first read there (what seems like a million years ago), I shop there every time I’m in L.A., sending books back to NYC for my own work, and more recently sending children’s books home to my daughter. This is very, very sad news.

A.M. Homes is the author of This Book Will Save Your Life  and The Mistress’s Daughter.

Kerry Madden

I gave my very first reading from my first novel, Offsides, at Dutton’s in 1996. My son, Flannery, was 8 years old, and he wanted to wear a tie to my first book signing (one of the few times in his life that Flannery, now 19, has ever worn a tie!). My husband was working that night, so I had both kids with me. I didn’t have time to put on the tie (or know how) so Doug Dutton taught Flannery how to tie his tie before my reading. Dutton’s was the store that invited me to read when other stores said no. From the very beginning, they have supported me and so many other new authors, and I will miss them very much.

Kerry Madden is the author of the Maggie Valley trilogy — Gentle’s Holler, Louisiana’s Song  and Jessie’s Mountain  — and is currently writing a biography of Harper Lee for teens. www.kerrymadden.com.

Rita Williams

The very first reading of my memoir, If the Creek Don’t Rise, took place in May of 2006 on a balmy Sunday afternoon in that lovely Dutton’s courtyard, with my friends sprinkled up and down the stairway and arrayed around the tree. It was both a thrill and an honor to find my own work among that collection of books on the big table in the west room. I had found a haven there for years. Tucking myself into some nook with a cup of coffee and finally emerging with that “have to have” book that would keep me up all night reading. I cannot begin to express what a loss this is — to me, personally, as well as to the community.

James Brown

Of all the bookstores where I did readings and signings for my second novel, Final Performance , my best experience and turnout were at Dutton’s. I remember Doug treating me kindly and generously, all the more meaningful because I am a pretty unknown writer. The thing about Doug is that he didn’t distinguish between midlist, poorly-selling but hard-working writers and the bigger, successful ones, and I’ve long respected him for it. It’s a shame the doors are closing, and a real loss for L.A.

James Brown is a novelist and memoirist.

Mollie Gregory

Losing Dutton’s is like losing a safe home — for writer and book. My first time at Dutton’s, I’d written a novel and figured I’d sketch the story then read a paragraph. That was fine, but then I went to a Carolyn See reading. She plunges into the meat, serves up a page or two or three, maybe a short chapter! I wrote more novels. I found that readings in other stores, particularly the chains, were like attending an office meeting. And they aren’t held in the bookstore’s garden (like at Dutton’s) with homemade food cooked by the author’s kids! The people at Dutton’s know books and like books. I could trot into the store, name a title, and they had it or they didn’t — but they knew of it. What a concept!

To Doug and Dave, the constants, to Diane Leslie, Kathleen Matson and many others over the years: You helped writers, you made writers feel good. And you invited us to read the work we’d spent a year or 10 writing! I cherish the times you gave all of us.

Mollie Gregory is the author of Birthstone and  Privileged Lies.

John Shannon

In the mid-1980s, after publishing several well-reviewed general-fiction novels, I was effectively blacklisted — blackballed would be more accurate — in New York because my writing had taken an increasingly political turn. I insisted on publishing a manuscript called Taking of the Waters, which was a three-generation saga of the American Left. I had one offer — from a major publisher who shall remain nameless — but only if I took out the middle third, which was about the Communist Party. After that, even my agent (at the time) stopped responding to me.

A few years later I founded a tiny press called John Brown Books to publish the manuscript myself. I drove boxes of the book around town and, despite a fine review in the L.A. Times , got treated like a pariah just about everywhere, like some self-published whacko with a spiral-bound book about how to run your car on tap water. A few stores took a few books, but only on consignment. I finally went to Dutton’s and Doug himself came out to meet me, talk to me warmly, introduce me to his staff, buy six copies and pay for them on the spot. I felt human again. I was almost crying. I’ll never forget that gracious afternoon and what a gentleman Doug Dutton was to me.

?John Shannon is the author of the Jack Liffey mystery series.


S. Ramos O’Briant