It Takes a Community to Raise a Bookstore

This is a story of a bookstore. It's a story of a bookstore that was baked from scratch, with not a lot of ingredients, by a lot of people who'd never baked a bookstore before, trying a method that, if not unprecedented, certainly is uncommon.

The bookstore is This House of Books, in the town where I live, Billings, Montana. Its name is a nod to perhaps the most famous work of perhaps the most famous Montana author, Ivan Doig. What we call it is one of my favorite things about it, but not my very favorite. No, my very favorite thing about it lies within the many people who love it and sustain it, and then that smaller set of stalwarts who ensure that it keeps going, who dig deep into their own pockets to give it an occasional transfusion, who pour their sweat equity into its needs, which are both predictable and unpredictable. Who are there for the biggest moments in its life. Like when it moves, as it did this holiday weekend, going from one lovely downtown space to another.

Elisa and I offered some modest help with the move, just a few hours and just a few dolly loads. We're part of the larger support system, the people who shop there, who invested early in its co-op model, who take advantage of its generous policy of holding events for local authors. Today, for example, I dropped in for an hour and helped stock shelves (including my own, below). A small contribution. The stalwarts, they'll be there into the deeper hours, as they have been all weekend. Bless them. We would not have this community pillar if not for them.

And it is a pillar, a status the bookstore has achieved against what Alex Chilton, in another context, called "unbelievable odds." It's the brainchild of author Carrie La Seur, whose admirable tenacity ensured that we didn't just talk about having a bookstore in Billings but also got it done. Its funding model was suggested by former Billings mayor Chuck Tooley. It wobbled into a standing position on underfunded legs, but it found a way to walk, and it's walking still. That's thanks to talented and selfless folks who volunteer their time and energy. And, of course, it's thanks to the people who shop there.

The continued existence of This House of Books feels personal to me, and not because of the money Elisa and I have sunk into it (not all that much, relatively speaking) or the labor we've done (ditto). No, it feels personal because the bookstore exemplifies the promise and the attraction of where we live. It feels like a stand for the homegrown, the funky, the only-in-Billings, the same as the non-chain restaurants and the little shops and the independent coffee bars here. It feels like something the billionaires and the hedge funds can't get their claws into, if we don't let them, if we consider where we buy and why and act on those values. Downtown Billings was a moribund place for many years, and it's not anymore. I'd like to think our little bookstore has something to do with that.

If you've got one—an independent bookstore—cherish it. If you've always dreamed of owning one, feel free to claim a piece of mine. Ours.