Eulogy for an Independent Bookstore
LA is a city known more for its light than its landmarks. The Ambassador Hotel, where Bobby Kennedy was shot, is gone, as is the Brown Derby, the legendary restaurant where celebrities dined on Cobb salad, invented by co-owner Bob Cobb. But when the Los Angeles Times (itself in failing health) reported last week that Dutton’s Brentwood would be closing in April, people were aghast.
The independent bookstore had been fighting a losing battle: Charles Munger, the billionaire who owns the complex where the store is housed, had threatened to tear it down, then reconsidered, only to have the place declared a landmark by the daughter of the man who designed it.
Dutton’s customers followed the developments as if glued to a telenovela, even as the shelves grew barer and the employees, more exhausted. But no one could imagine the store would actually close.
Immediately after the announcement, I raced to Dutton’s, as teens did to the Viper Room on Hollywood Boulevard when River Phoenix collapsed and died outside. There was Doug Dutton, the owner, looking saintly and dejected, hugging his grieving customers. The feeling was one of outrage mixed with disbelief.
Where else could any book be ordered and put, indefinitely, on hold? Where else would the women in the children’s department–a disorganized affair, full of remembered classics and devoid of anything grating or shiny–recall every book your child had read in a series, or know which series she would like to read next?
