Novelist Richard Brautigan's Unrecorded One Day Marriage Certificate Surfaces

By Stephen J. Gertz

If you were an American Boomer breathing during the 'Sixites and a part of or a close observer of the Counterculture you likely read  Trout Fishing in America, the novella by Richard Brautigan published in 1967 (though written in 1961). It has sold 2,000,000 copies.

And it is just as likely that, forty-five years later, you, as I, can't remember much  about it if anything at all. Beyond its non-linear narrative - it is a series of loosely connected anecdotes, an admix of playful and gently satiric musings not without childlike charm - there is no story, however abstract, to hold on to. Brautigan demands nothing from the reader except, perhaps, suspension of critical judgment. Ultimately, his work is guilty of one of the worst sins in literature: it is utterly innocuous,  all gums no teeth. It was baby food for a segment of readers not yet weaned onto solids and reluctant to graduate to  literature that needed to be, at least, moderately chewed.

Trout Fishing in America was, as all of Brautigan's prose and poetry, very much of its time and place, possessing all the simplicity, innocence and naivety we associate with the peace and love aspect of hippie-dom with whimsical insights passing for wisdom that evaporate within ten minutes of reading them. "There is no there there," as Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, California. And when the Age of Aquarius died from lack of guile and a head-on collision with reality so did Brautigan's audience and career.

But for a few precious years Brautigan was it, a cult writer with a following of avid fans who consumed his every word, and he deserves  a solid place in modern American literature for capturing the Peter Pan aspect of 'Sixties counterculture.

In 1968, at the height of his popularity, he published an obscure broadside dated February 29 that soon became even more so.

The One Day Marriage Certificate is not found in John F. Barber's annotated bibliography of Brautigan (1990) nor in the Brautigan section of Gary Lepper's A Bibliographical Introduction to Seventy-Five Modern American Authors, published by the late Peter Howard's Berkeley-based Serendipity Books in 1976. How many copies were printed remains unknown. No copies are located by OCLC.  It's as if it never existed.

Yet a copy has surfaced and is currently being offered by Between The Covers.

Here, Brautigan channels Al Capp's Marryin' Sam, from the comic strip Li'l Abner, who presides over Sadie Hawkins Day, February 29th, that leap year ritual when the single girls of Dogpatch are let loose to lasso a husband.

The text, wrapped by a bevy of pre-Raphaelite/Art Nouveau beauties, reads: "This beautiful one day marriage is ours for February 29, 1968 because we feel this way toward each other and want forever to be a single day,"  followed by blank lines to be filled in. It is signed "Marryin' Sam in and for Golden Gate Park," San Francisco, and the credit at the bottom reads: "Words - Richard Brautigan. Pictures - The San Andreas Fault. Printing - Rapid Reproductions."

After the wedding you could truck on down to Winterland to see Cream perform Sunshine of Your Love on that night of February 29, 1968, the group's We're Going Wrong, presumably, not heard until the day after the One Day Marriage when the good vibes withered on the vine, the acid finally wore off, and the honeymoon was over. Sort of like the 'Sixties.

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Peter B. Howard July 1, 1938 - March 31, 2011

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Read A Wake for the Still Alive, a living tribute to Peter B. Howard, originally published August 2010.

Watch a video interview of Peter B. Howard here.

Photo credit: Ken Sanders.
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A Wake For The Still Alive: Peter B. Howard Part 5

Photo: Ken Sanders.

"unlimited service to the ABAA..."

This little memory is for Peter, whom I have known, admired, respected, and feared all of my career:

It was 1967 and I was just three months an employee of Jake Zeitlin's "Big Red Barn” bookstore, Zeitlin and Ver Brugge, and knew nothing. I guess that we received a list or catalogue offering books for sale (computers and the internet hadn't been thought of, at least not in the book business) and I had ordered (for all of $40 if memory serves correctly) an Advance Proof Copy of Bertrand Russell's Satan in the Suburbs. I was just beginning to collect Russell and, of course, had no idea what an Advance Proof Copy of anything looked like! It turned out to be not unlike an ordinary small paperback, but it was an Advance Proof Copy, and it impressed me beyond measure!

When I was told that it had arrived in Jake's packing room, I went to claim it. I don't know what I expected, but imagine my amazement upon seeing this extremely well packed, maybe over-packed little parcel that took me what seemed to be forever to open. What a great job of packing! I had never experienced anything like it. Remember, those were the days when English dealers like Blackwell's wrapped everything in a layer or two of cardboard, tied up VERY tightly with string, and sent them on. I was very impressed.

And then, even more surprise: typed at the bottom of the invoice were the words "Serendipity Charges No Postage"!!! I have always wanted to emulate that very wise business policy and have sometimes done so, but with postage going up and up, and my partners offering more and more resistance I haven’t always gotten away with it. But I wish that I had!

Peter has gone on to a long career of great bookselling and unlimited service to the ABAA but those thoughts are what I remember most.

Thank you, Peter.

- Michael Thompson
  
Michael Thompson is proprietor of Michael R. Thompson Booksellers in Los Angeles, CA. 

Jeff Towns scouting at Serendipity Books.
Photo (and children) by Mykaljon Thompson.

“there has never been, nor will there ever be another”

I first saw Peter Howard in the mid seventies at the first A.B.A. bookfair I ever visited at the plush Grosvenor Hotel in London's Park Lane. Up from the country and hardly wet behind my bookselling ears , I was  over-awed by the whole affair but I do remember very clearly the stand marked 'Serendipity Books  Berkeley CA'.

The proprietor looked somewhat ill at ease. He was tall, bespectacled, had little hair and was dressed in a mossy tweed jacket, shirt, tie; he looked ill at ease in these clothes, too. His discomfort showed in his face and I was too timid to speak with him but I remember his stock: He had none of the great vellum bound anatomies and herbals  that the European dealers  displayed, nor was his stand the wall to wall gleaming calf of the British; his books were modern. And his case was full of bits of paper with text - some typed, some scrawled. But what words! Malcolm Lowry writing from Mexico, Kerouac from the desert, and Nabokov in Russian, together with proof copies, inscribed copies and gleaaming firsts. That display had a profound effect on me.

I first met Peter at the first ever North American book fair I attended as an exhibitor, at the King Edward Hotel in Toronto. He was taciturn and laconic - his staff Nancy and Burton were more fun. But, in concert with years of visits to Berkeley, first to the Shattuck store and then to the great University location, and Peter’s expeditions to the UK with side trips into Wales and book fairs all over, I came to understand and respect this great bookseller and we became friends

On his first visit to my home in Swansea Peter came down to breakfast possessively clutching a Victorian, painted, cast-iron toy money-box. It was one of my prized possessions. It was shaped as a baseball tableau.

It had a remarkable mechanical movement - you loaded a small coin into the pitcher’s hand, cocked his arm, pressed a lever, he pitched, the batter swung, missed, and the catcher deflected the coin down into the money box. It was quite wonderful and it was no longer mine. I learned a valuable lesson: to show Peter something (or even let him glimpse it) is seen as an irrefutable offer to trade!

Fast forward twenty years. Scene: Serendipity Books, late afternoon:

I entered the shop straight from the airport after a tiring fifteen hour journey and climbed my way through the boxes to say hello to Peter. He looked up from his computer when I said hello.  I was met with a scowl and growl.

"What are you doing here?!" he barked

I was shocked and bemused

"I came straight -”

"Why aren’t you at my house?" he barked again.

" I just got in, thought I would - ”

"Get to my house . There are fifty boxes of Dylan Thomas for you to go through!"

I immediately went. Allison's greeting was altogether more gentle.

The 50 boxes of books were stacked in the room I was to stay in. And they were wonderful.

Fast forward another five years. Cut to:  Serendipity Books during one of Peter's great bi-annual 'clean for a day' book fair party/extravaganzas.

Peter drags a harassed customer clutching a book over towards me. The book is one of many I have left on consignment over the years. Peter demands that I inform the customer what my best price will be. It is marked $650. I say $500. Peter loudly instructs the man to give me a cheque for $500 but to be sure to give Nancy a dollar and wanders off mumbling about how if Serendipity makes one dollar on every book....

There has never been, nor will there ever be another  bookseller quite like Peter Howard.

- Jeff Towns

Jeff Towns is proprietor of Dylans Bookstore in Swansea, U.K.

Photo: Eddie Rosenbaum, The Daily Californian.

“a long shadow...”

Peter Howard.   A bookseller's name which evokes strong feelings in the trade.  For me, it's primarily admiration.  Peter is/was a mentor, of sorts, that certainly has strongly influenced my career as a bookseller.  And I readily acknowledge the debt I owe him.  Of the many, many memories I have, one stands out...

In the early 1990s, as I was contemplating a second career in bookselling (I was in the Coast Guard at the time, facing mandatory retirement in a few years) he said something to the effect of "Do something else.  You're twenty years behind."  He was, of course, correct.  There is no way anyone can make up the actual experience of handling a myriad of books over the course of two decades.  I, every day, regret not finding this calling until my late 30s.

But I'm a contrary sort, so I persevered, and Peter, initially shaking his head, willing, and actively, supported my 1994 application to the ABAA.  Without such, I suspect my membership would have been delayed a number of years, as I was, at the time, in-between, not full time, and a bit shy of the financial levels desired by the ABAA for 'part-timers'.  Nevertheless, with his advocacy, I was accepted for ABAA membership in February 1995.  Which brings me, in my opinion, to one of Peter's most admirable traits-  he supports the trade, those that comprise the trade, and especially those new to the trade.  I hope I've learned this lesson, and apply it in my daily bookselling activities.

Further, following in the same vein, one other lesson taught to me has been to 'pay it forward'.  Peter has done me, as well as many booksellers, a wealth of courtesies over the years, for which he rarely asked for 'payback'.  As such, I try to do the same.  When a young bookseller inquires of me about 'payback' for a professional courtesy, I say, thinking of Peter's example, "Pay it forward."

Finally, as Michael Thompson has long advocated, "The best thing about the trade, is the trade."  To me, Peter Howard epitomizes the best aspects of the trade. Peter constantly, and routinely, 'got' great books.  He placed them were they should be placed.  He is acquianted with most 'movers & shakers' in all the divers book communities.  He encouraged new booksellers.  He's generous.  He knows books.  He knows how to sell books.  In summary, he casts a large shadow.  And when that shadow fades, he will be sorely missed.  Especially by me.  Especially by me.

- Vic Zoschak

Vic Zoschak is the proprietor of Tavistock Books in Alameda, CA.

Photo: Sheila Newbery.

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Previously: [1] [2] [3] [4]

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Booktryst thanks Dan Adams, John Baxter, Taylor Bowie, John Crichton, Mary Giliam, Ed Glaser, Eric Korn, John Martin, David Mason, James Pepper, Ken Sanders, Charles Seluzicki, Ralph Sipper, Martin Stone, Michael R. Thompson, Jeff Towns, and Vic Zoschak for their contributions.

A special thank you to James Pepper and John Crichton for their assistance with getting this project off the ground. Very special thanks to James Pepper and Ralph Sipper for their ongoing encouragement and support.

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[Sold Out]. A print issue of A Wake For the Still Alive: Peter B. Howard is available in a limited edition of 200 copies for sale, at $20 postpaid. All proceeds will be donated to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's (ABAA) Benevolent Fund.

Ordering information:

Payment by check only, payable to: Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund.

Mail to:

Stephen J. Gertz
c/o David Brass Rare Books, 23901 Calabasas Road, suite 2060, Calabasas, CA 91302.

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A Wake For The Still Alive: Peter B. Howard Part 4

Photo: Ken Sanders.

 “peter’s tutorial” 

I am convinced that those of us who grew toward maturity as booksellers in the 70’s were a fortunate lot. The older generation was established, vital, active: Michael Papantonio, Hans Kraus, Jack Bartfield, Margie Cohn. Yes, I think of New York and New England as well. Growing up in Baltimore, one did not have to look far. But there were those others, the younger generation, ten or fifteen years my senior and making waves, cutting new paths. A shift was in process and we were watching it unfold.

The first time I met Peter Howard, he was being guided to my booth at the Boston Book Fair by Harvey Tucker. His mission was to get possession of a book I had brought: H. L. Mencken’s first book, Ventures Into Verse. Yes, there was some patter but there was also a kind of bravado, even macho; you could see it in the attitude of his hat and in the sudden way that the patter stopped and Peter got down to business. The old world gentility simply was not his style.

It was refreshing even if a bit intimidating at times. Peter was not shy about his intent. The best bookstore in the world, he let us know long ago, has one copy of everything in it. And our responsibility as booksellers on the road is to look at every book. It all sounds quite Faustian now. But Peter’s great curiosity, his own willingness to share and to learn has never been lost on me or anyone close to him. There is always something possible about the most seemingly impossible task. To deny it is to throw down the gauntlet. And you really do not want to find yourself in that position with Peter.

Peter Howard’s example, made flesh by the hand extended to each of us in both service and generosity, by the daring of his purchases and the commitment to his ideals as a bookseller - witness Serendipity Books - stays indelibly with us. It carried us on, iconic, sometimes fierce, new.

- Charles Seluzicki

Charles Seluzicki is proprietor of Charles Seluzicki Fine & Rare Books in Portland, OR.

Left to right: Larry Moskowitz, Peter Howard, Carol Sipper, Lou Weinstein, Ralph Sipper, c. 1975.
Photo courtesy Ralph Sipper.

“sui generis...”

Ever since I met him—and we’re not all that far from the half-century mark—Peter Howard, like a kindred force of nature, the ever-zealous Captain Ahab—continues to swim against the tide, march to his own drummer, and tilt not with windmills but any opponent, however formidable, whose wisdom or policies he has come to question.

In our loosely-structured book world, a realm that allows for more freedom of expression than just about any other I know, Peter stands out as a world class debater and debunker.  He might at any moment unleash that unmistakable tenor instrument of his in clarion tones of disapproval that easily resonate from the far reaches of a book fair auditorium.  Or he may let fly with a deadly verbal shaft from a well-stocked quiver that cleanly bisects the well-thought-out argument you supposed you were making.  Sui Generis is a  descriptor that might have been coined with this singular being in mind.

Back in the incunabular days of my rare-book apprenticeship, I would leave our remote Inverness home early enough to avoid the morning traffic and head for Berkeley’s Shattuck Avenue, the site of Serendipity Books.  In those shoe-horned premises I would forage all day for books, ever-aware of Peter’s forbidding presence.

On more than one occasion I stayed the night in the Howards’ basement, a room perimetered on all sides by floor to ceiling shelves.  This was the Rideout Room, so-called because it housed Serendipity’s collection of proletarian fiction, one that Peter had fleshed out considerably from the skeleton of Walter Rideout’s classic study of radical literature.  Years later, as such quirky things sometimes occur in our trade, Joseph the Provider, the book enterprise I established soon after I came under Peter’s sway, was able to place the collection en bloc in Tulsa University.

I was not the only house guest of Chez Serendipity in those early days.  When he was not on the road scouting books for Serendipity, David Sachs slept not with the fishes but on a pallet in a storeroom down the street.  David’s roommates?  Thousands upon thousands of  little mags.  In a nearby room, Peter’s longtime manager, Nancy Kosenka, reposed amidst a mountain of Billy Books. These constituted the abandoned inventory of Bill Pieper, whose premature death dictated their consignment to Serendipity.  Each of the volumes was meticulously coded in Peter’s feathery hand as “Billy.”

Those who know Peter are aware of the blinkered passion with which he is capable of embracing a concept.  There was the time he determined to make a proper omelet.  For this fire and brimstone insister upon orthodoxy, there was only one unswerving way to do so. You cooked an egg in a French omelet pan sans fillers which you then flipped and folded in the Gallic manner.  This, my host soberly informed me would serve as my lunch.  The next time Peter came to Santa Barbara, I played a variation on his spare theme.  My breakfast omelet consisted of three jumbo eggs, shallots, Black Forest ham, farmer’s market Chanterelles, and a modicum of one-year aged Gruyere.  This I served on a buttery croissant.  It was hard to discern whether or not my austere guest approved because he suctioned down the mélange in three mega-bites. Well, maybe four.  And never breathed a word of my apostasy.

W. S. Merwin has observed that what you come to remember becomes yourself.  Let’s  extend this thought by recalling a series of events that in sum epitomize the essence of another.

Some hand-held shots of Peter, then. 

We are in the San Francisco apartment where Joseph the Provider began.  Peter visits and asks for prices on two just-acquired John Steinbeck titles.  I divine that the one he really covets is the signed, limited “Red Pony” and craftily up the ante on my intended asking price, while correspondingly lowering that of the inscribed trade edition (I think it was “The Pearl.”).  Pouncing on the latter, my catlike buyer murmurs:  “You seem to have these prices reversed.”

In Berkeley I watch Peter dial the number of a Western Americana dealer and without so much as a hello or similar act of foreplay ask: “What’s early for Arizona?” get his answer, and hang up with the thrift of verbiage of which a Scotsman would be proud.

I offer a rare pamphlet to Peter at a rock-bottom price.  He recoils slightly, smiles knowingly, and, after making meaningful eye contact, asks:  “Is there a stack?”

Peter and I are at a post-LA book fair gathering on a sultry evening, having been invited to an older colleague’s home.  The other dealers and their matronly wives outrank us in terms of seniority by a generation.  Still in the coats and ties that back then constituted book fair dress code, several of us have loosened our collars as we sit poolside sipping drinks.  Over the light clink of glasses, a stentorian voice rings out.  It is Peter announcing his intention to take a dip.  And with the alacrity of a fireman throwing on clothes, Peter shucks his off and bellywhops in.  The silence, as they say, is deafening.  Having decided that a few perfunctory paddles will suffice, he flips over onto his back and floats—serenely and up-periscope—on the water’s surface.  I am able to report that like some pale-hued dust jackets, Peter, too, was only slightly sunned.

Several years ago our man exposed himself again to his peers, this time on the ABAA chatline, baring Serendipity’s finances at encyclopedic length and down to the most intimate details with the same insouciance that is a staple of his inimitable outrageousness.

Unlike many dealers, I have not much partnered through the years with colleagues on book buys.  Nevertheless, three decades ago I went to Michigan with Peter and my old partner, Larry Moskowitz.  Toby Holtzman was considering the sale of his comprehensive library of modern firsts and we were invited to make a co-bid.  Toby left  us alone to go over the copies, a process that consumed several hours.  The three of us reached an easy agreement as to the collection’s market value, more specifically what one might eventually realize from the sale of the books if everything fell into place.  Toby came back in and without consulting Larry and me and before our host had even crossed the room, Peter blurted out that RETAIL figure as our bid.  It will come as no surprise that Larry and I declined to walk this entrepreneurial tightrope, and Peter wound up taking on the books by his lonesome.

As time passed other major collections that we might have acquired went to Serendipity, including Gary Lepper’s Seventy-Five American Authors’ collection, Carl Petersen’s peerless William Faulkners, and 18,000 volumes that Carter Burden de-accessioned from his monumental collection.  And just a little over a year ago Larry’s own Loblolly books found their way into Peter’s benevolent care.

Only once can I recall a significant trove ending up with us.  In outbidding Serendipity and another major dealer for the late Kenyon Starling’s highspot-studded collection of Hemingways, Faulkners, and Steinbecks  I was made to feel something like the Randolph Scott character in San Peckinpah’s Ride the High Country who wistfully recalls:  “I was his deputy many times. Once he was mine.”

In 1973 Peter supported my application for ABAA membership.  I retain a copy of that document which was typed on one of Peter’s duodecimo invoice forms.  The last sentence described me as: “a fresh breath to this foggy coast.” 

I cannot let you have the last word here, old friend.  So let me venture this. If it is  breathing of which we speak, then you are an ocean-sized oxygen tank who has pumped life-giving  book air into the lives of,  perhaps not so many as the vast number of volumes in your keeping, but many, many more than anyone I know.

- Ralph Sipper

Ralph Sipper is proprietor of Ralph Sipper Books in Santa Barbara, CA.

Left to right: Stuart Teitler, Martin Stone, Bill Matthews, Charlie Seluzicki,
Peter Howard, c. mid-1980s.
Photo courtesy Martin Stone.

“bookselling is a service...”
 

In the dream landscape of every bibliophile there is a vast shop, seemingly chaotic, constantly churning and changing. If the moment is right, almost any book may be found there. This magical ideal has, perhaps, never had a true earthly counterpart, and in the atrophied, cleaned-up world of the twenty-first century even its shadow has almost vanished. Yet Serendipity Books remains, a mysterious anomaly as close as one gets to paradise. This is no dream; at its helm is Peter B. Howard, substantially human, quixotic, fired-up and endlessly entertaining.

I first met Peter at the Olympia Bookfair in the late 1970s; he had a table of James Joyce in absolutely marvelous condition, many of them inscribed. I stood there hypnotised. I was new to the game, working the coal-face of the book trade, a bottom-feeding outsider. I had never seen books like these; a first edition of Joyce’s Dubliners, brand-new in dust-jacket, that had never been tipped out of a sack at five in the morning in Brick Lane market.

Peter peered down at me with avuncular concern. "Stay well away from Joyce,” he said. "He's a nightmare to buy and sell."

He said he'd like to see my books and I gave him my address and phone number. He ignored the phone, and sometime after midnight there was a rapping at my window.

"Fuck off," I yelled. My home was in Whitechapel; bad people sometimes tried to get in under cover of darkness.

"Now, now, Martin, it's Peter Howard and I'm here to buy your books."

A fellow member of the 24hour club. I hid the cocaine and let him in.

He pointed at the far wall of my storeroom. "What are all those?"

"Minor Edwardian and Victorian fiction."

"There's no such thing as minor."

"Er, no, of course not...I mean, I rather like them all really."

"How much for the wall?"

I was check-mated; it was the first time I'd encountered the omnivore approach to book buying.

"Well, some of them are a bit more but mostly they're about two pounds each."

"Why can't they be more, Martin?"

No book dealer had ever asked me that question, either.

Across the road from my house was a brutally ugly corner pub, always full of shagged-out hookers and inept but vicious criminals. I took Peter there the next day to wrap up the deal; he seemed to love it. I knew this man could be a friend.

On Peter's next visit to Britain, we hit the road for the goldfields of Scotland and the industrial North, in those days crammed tight with unrecognised treasure. Queuing up at a self-service health food cafe near Edinburgh University, Peter caught me eying the girl students in line ahead of us.

"And they're all different!" he giggled.

We paid a visit to Tony Hattersley, who had retired to a giant granite mansion deep hidden up the valley behind Whitby, Dracula's landing-place. For forty years, the whole of the North had been carved up between Tony and Horace Halewood, his counterpart in Preston; between them, they controlled all the books and ruled the auction rooms with an iron fist. Tony had room after room of elephant folios, Victorian travel, private press books, a yellow shelf of Draculas.

Again the giggle.

I see Peter only every once in a while but his presence and influence on my life has been disproportionately large. He brought me to America for the first time, he bought me new teeth, he steered me through some very dark days, he and Alison opened their home to me whenever I wanted, even when they were both sick. I've acquired  mountains of wonderful books from Serendipity and sold mountains of books to them.

A few things I've learned from Peter:

Bookselling is a service (See PBH for a sterling example of this Buddhist principle in action).

Even so, there is no need to suffer fools gladly (See also PBH for correct handling method).

Rigid rules regarding profit margins are unnecessary and counter-productive; a good book can always be sold for more than its buying price.

When buying a library, always look at the other stuff around it. Where are the letters, paintings, prints? Is this Nietzsche's typewriter?

Clear the library straight away. You don't want to go back the next week to hear they've decided to keep the 1865 Alice In Wonderland because little Jimmy might want to read it when he grows up.

Every day, something new can be learned.

It never ends; there are always more books.

But I never did take any notice of Peter's warning about James Joyce, and over the years Mr. Joyce has been very kind to me. Beginner's luck?

-Martin Stone

Martin Stone is, by common acclaim, the greatest book scout of his generation. He currently lives in Paris.   

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[1] [2] [3] Tomorrow: Part 5.

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Booktryst thanks Dan Adams, John Baxter, Taylor Bowie, John Crichton, Mary Giliam, Ed Glaser, Eric Korn, John Martin, David Mason, James Pepper, Ken Sanders, Charles Seluzicki, Ralph Sipper, Martin Stone, Michael R. Thompson, Jeff Towns, and Vic Zoschak for their contributions.

A special thank you to James Pepper and John Crichton for their assistance with getting this project off the ground. Very special thanks to James Pepper and Ralph Sipper for their ongoing encouragement and support.

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[Sold Out]. A print issue of A Wake For the Still Alive: Peter B. Howard is available in a limited edition of 200 copies for sale, at $20 postpaid. All proceeds will be donated to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's (ABAA) Benevolent Fund.

Ordering information:

Payment by check only, payable to: Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund.

Mail to:

Stephen J. Gertz
c/o David Brass Rare Books, 23901 Calabasas Road, suite 2060, Calabasas, CA 91302.

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A Wake For The Still Alive: Peter B. Howard Part 3

Photo: Ken Sanders.

“the biblical prophet...”

I have known Peter Howard for some forty years, during which time, along with many, many book transactions, we have had countless disagreements, confrontations and fights.  Many of these originated from his strong convictions about loyalty to friends – in particular his friend, and my nemesis, William Hoffer.

In spite of all my confrontations with Peter, I greatly admire his style and his capacities as a bookseller and have often referred to him – once in print – as being the bookseller who I consider to be the best bookseller of my generation. This contention caused serious opposition from some who had different views; other worthy dealers, in other fields, would be nominated, and I would have to concede that perhaps those opposing views had some merit. Admitting that, I would then add that perhaps I should have qualified my statement by saying the best in the field he dealt in, modern literature.

But in truth I meant it. I believe that Peter would have excelled in whatever field he chose to deal in because he had all the attributes that I believe are shared by all true booksellers.

First, reverence for the book and its importance as a worthy cultural artifact; next the supremacy of the dealer as arbiter of the standards of collecting and the moral imperative to convey those standards to others. And perhaps, his most admirable trait, his understanding of the importance of other dealers to the trade. His love of selling to the trade and his generosity in his dealings with his colleagues is well known and, I’m sure, the accounts found here will reflect many instances of this.
  
My favorite Peter anecdote – and there are plenty to choose from – relates to a personal incident. And I also think it is a wonderful example of a creative insult. It also reflects his character and the very different manner with which he viewed the trade and our relations with other dealers. Once, at a bookfair during one of our intermittent periods of strife, I returned to my booth to find Peter’s card in a book. I was a bit surprised because we weren’t speaking just then. While I no longer remember the nature of that particular fight, I was surprised to find that he had been in my booth, since my own method of dealing with colleagues I am angry at is to not buy any books from them. But I invoiced the book, deducting the normal trade discount and sent the book to Peter’s booth. Later that day my invoice was returned, with the discount crossed out and the full price of the book paid by cheque. Across the invoice, in large printed letters, read “DISCOUNT REFUSED.” I admired the classy nature of that deliberate insult then, and I still do. What a wonderful insult, I thought, expressing your contempt for a colleague by refusing to accept a traditional courtesy of the trade.

I’m sure he bought the book based on his oft-trumpeted credo of “serving the customer.” He did not allow his professionalism and duty to his client to be affected by our disagreement, and by refusing the usual trade amenity, found a way of putting me in my place.

When we were all younger I envied Peter his apparent certainty at the rightness of his own views; he always had an instant answer which he would throw in your face in the manner of some biblical prophet. Years later I saw a short bio somewhere which stated that one of his majors in University had been Biblical Studies. Aha! I thought – that’s the key to Howard; the biblical prophet; the man whose vision, fueled by passion, drives him to exhort and lecture; the man who has the truth and who is compelled to pass it on. Like several booksellers I’ve known he seemed to have transferred his religious impulses to his vocation.

I still consider Peter to be one of the greatest of American booksellers. We know Kraus and Rosenbach could sell great books, but there are lots of great salesmen around. What’s needed are more philosophers.

Peter’s ideas and actions influenced many, not just booksellers. I’m sure many collectors and librarians have also benefited by listening to his pronouncements.

He made his mark in his time and if he was not always easy to deal with, well, that seems to go with greatness. I would sometimes admonish Peter for not listening to my pronouncements, claiming he should be more respectful of his elders. I am exactly one day older then him. But that didn’t happen. Another example of the man who follows his own vision.

I learned plenty from him and if much of it came from my own efforts to confute those of his certainties I didn’t like, or couldn’t accept, that doesn’t lessen his impact.

I often welcomed the 3000 miles which separated us, but I’m glad I knew him and I continue to admire him.

Men like Peter Howard are the ones who change the world.

He will be remembered.

- David Mason

David Mason is the proprietor of David Mason Books in Toronto, Canada.

Peter Howard (r) with James Pepper.
Photo courtesy James Pepper.

“the great catalyst...”

Growing up in Southern California, I started riding my bicycle to  bookstores at the age of fourteen. By the fall of 1970, I was  eighteen years old, a freshman in college, and crazy about books.  While walking through my college library I saw a poster for the ABAA  Antiquarian Book Fair being held at the now lost Ambassador Hotel in  Los Angeles.

Somehow I managed to drag my girlfriend to it convincing  her it would be a fun date. As I recall she actually had a good time  but I was enthralled. It was amazing that dealers would put famous  books or George Washington and Ernest Hemingway letters into my  hands. There were so many things I would have loved to own but had  little money. My one purchase was a $15 copy of the Wimp Press piracy  of Bob Dylan’s book, Tarantula, which at that point Dylan had not  allowed to be published. The booth was Serendipity Books and I met  the remarkable Peter B. Howard, little knowing that the encounter  would contribute to my one day becoming a bookseller.

One of God’s more complex creatures, Peter is the very definition of  the word mercurial. Quirky as he can be, Peter has always personally  treated me with great courtesy. I have many times been the recipient  of his kindness. I once found he had a moderately expensive book that  I wanted to buy for my personal collection. I sheepishly asked him if  I could have a little time to pay for it, thinking that maybe that 60  or 90 days would be quite nice. Peter looked at me and said “What do  you need, two years, three years?”

A quarter of a century ago,  knowing that I personally collected cinema in a serious way, Peter  sold me Orson Welles’ working manuscripts for the screenplay of his  classic film, Touch of Evil, now one of the great highlights of my  collection. He charged me $10,000 and gave me a year to pay. But with  Peter you knew that if you got in trouble he would give you more time.

Peter takes great pride in saying that Serendipity Books has never  charged for shipping. Uniquely, Peter has taken that saying to new levels.  For years when there have been book fairs in San Francisco, Peter  would encourage dealers to send their boxes of books for the fair to  Serendipity. He would store them, then at the time of the fair he  would rent a truck, take them to the venue and have them delivered to  your booth. When there were ABAA fairs in Los Angeles. Peter would  rent trucks and drive south the boxes to supply many booths of those  dealers from Northern California. All this for free.

I have always thought of Peter as the Great Catalyst. He has this  peculiar genius for obtaining and selling books. Many dealers over  years have had a large number of items supplied for their businesses  through their repeated scouting of the store. He has encouraged a  good number of young booksellers, some of whom are now considered the  established old guard. I have seen him go to great lengths to find  things for collectors. After years of selling modern literature only,  Peter decided to take a new look at things and expanded his business  to embrace all kinds of interesting non-fiction areas. Serendipity  Books is a place where a hyper-modern collector can find an esoteric  piece of poetry or an incunabula dealer from Holland finds an  historical treatise from the1490s.

One of the various sub-definitions of the word “serendipity” is noted  as “someone useful found by accident.” Peter Howard is much more than  someone merely useful.

- James Pepper

James Pepper is the proprietor of James Pepper Rare Books in Santa Barbara, CA.

Photo: Ken Sanders.

“the minotaur…”

Serendipity Books of Berkeley, California  is a zen koan of a book shop, and its proprietor, Peter B. Howard,  is the minotaur  at the heart of the labyrinth.  Or perhaps a reverse labyrinth, as Mr. Howard’s desk is situated at the far end of the great two story room as one first enters Serendipity and  flanked by two  runs of large towering bookshelves  set in a sort of isosceles triangle, yet open at both ends, so as to funnel both  your eyes and your body  towards the minotaur himself: Peter B. Howard. 

Like the oracle at Delphi,  one must pass through these portals  and be prepared to answer the riddle of the sphinx.  Many have  failed these initial  tests,  or quests,  and have  likewise failed to learn  any of the secrets that lay beyond.

Peter B. Howard  was  to the bookselling of the 1960s  as Orson Welles once was to  film of the 1930s: A brilliant and arrogant mind that does not suffer fools lightly.  As the great Berkeley and Serendipity scholar, Ian Jackson, once wrote in his brilliant series of treatsies  on Peter B. Howard and Serendipity Books  ("The Key To Serendipity or How To Buy Books from Serendipity"  and  “The Key To Serendipity Or How To Find Books In Spite of Peter B. Howard”) a question best not posted to Mr. Howard in any of its myriad forms is ”Are these books in any kind of order?” because, in Mr. Howard’s mind, the only place they reside in any sort of order or organization is in Mr. Howard’s mind  and nowhere else.

The Zen koans  are alive and pulsating throughout every rolling stack and every nook and cranny  but are ordinarily invisible to those mere mortals of booksellers who make it past  the initial Serendipity fulcrum and the minotaur himself  and wade off into the heart of darkness  or the river Styx  without  oars or illumination. Pity that Mr. Jackson never finished the map; the integral third volume which shall evermore rank, along with  Aristotle’s Lost Poetics, and the other unknown volumes that burned in Alexandria, as one of the great lost books of all time.

Peter B. Howard bears a remarkable resemblance to the crotchety old bookseller in Michael Ende’s The Never Ending Story  - “Your books,  are safe, my books are real” - and his premises  are probably the closest I’ve  seen to those in   the library labyrinthe  in   the filmed version of  Umberto Eco’s  “The Name of the Rose," although I have yet to encounter  any arsenic-laced incunabula except, perhaps, from the tongue of the proprietor.   And Serendipity  is the operative  word  for both the premises;  in their vast inventories  and ever changing denizens.  The minotaur himself  and  his long suffering assistant, Nancy Kosenka, are the only two constants in this ever evolving and serendipitous  landscape.    And  those premises are a bit like the various lands of Oz,  although not nearly as neatly ordered and likely full of a lot more surprises. 

Prospecting the shelves  and the vast inventories  of Serendipity is a daunting task for the uninitiated  or the lone prospector.  But there is gold in them there hills,  or more precisely  in the thousands  of “sacks”  overflowing the aisles and floors  that denote  the newest of arrivals  to the Serendipity landscape.    Acquiring  books  from Mr. Howard  is an arduous  and detailed process  and not for the faint of heart  and I don’t have time to attempt an explanation of that process here.  Again I would refer the neophyte to Mr. Ian Jackson’s  articulations  of the Serendipity experience  contained in his two published volumes  about Peter B. Howard and Serendipity Books.

But what I wish to say  is that Peter B. Howard  is one of the most generous and knowledgeable  men  that has ever lived in the world of books.  He has an astonishing mind and intellect  and passion for books that is only matched  by   his equally intimidating  arrogance, superiority,  eccentricity,  and furor in the trade. He is simultaneously  one of the most beloved, admired,  feared and disliked individuals  that ever plied the world of books.   He has acquired  and articulated  and sold some of the most important  collections and archives in the second half of the 20th century in the book world, and hundreds of booksellers  are the richer  for his legendary  largess in the trade; both in spirit and pocketbook.  I know that my own acquaintance  with Mr. Howard and Serendipity Books  has been an unforgettable experience  and I am the richer  for it.

Peter B. Howard is the architect of Serendipity and it has been a willful  and determined construction  over the past half century, that is and always will be a work in progress.  By necessity and his own volition,  Serendipity  Books  cannot and will not outlive its creator. The minotaur  is on his own final journey into the very heart  of  the zen koan labyrinth maze of his  own making. Would that he would be able to  report back to us  what he finds when he finally gets to where he’s going.

- Ken Sanders.

Ken Sanders is "creating chaos out of anarchy for a better tomorrow" at Ken Sanders Rare Books in Salt Lake City, UT.

__________

[1] [2] Tomorrow: Part 4.

__________

Booktryst thanks Dan Adams, John Baxter, Taylor Bowie, John Crichton, Mary Gilliam, Ed Glaser, Eric Korn, John Martin, David Mason, James Pepper, Ken Sanders, Charles Seluzicki, Ralph Sipper, Martin Stone, Michael R. Thompson, Jeff Towns, and Vic Zoschak for their contributions.

A special thank you to James Pepper and John Crichton for their assistance with getting this project off the ground. Very special thanks to James Pepper and Ralph Sipper for their ongoing encouragement and support.

__________

[Sold Out]. A print issue of A Wake For the Still Alive: Peter B. Howard is available in a limited edition of 200 copies for sale, at $20 postpaid. All proceeds will be donated to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's (ABAA) Benevolent Fund.

Ordering information:

Payment by check only, payable to: Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund.

Mail to:

Stephen J. Gertz
c/o David Brass Rare Books, 23901 Calabasas Road, suite 2060, Calabasas, CA 91302.

__________

__________

A Wake For The Still Alive: Peter B. Howard Part 2

“made my future in this profession possible”

In July of 1975, fresh out of college with a degree in journalism in hand, I moved to Berkeley, California, and found myself living on Francisco Street, one block from Serendipity Books, a bookstore I had previously known only through its catalogues. I went there almost immediately, but the first few visits there was no Peter Howard, a name and face I did not at that point even know. On those first visits the store was always quiet; it felt nearly deserted. But one day I returned and the quiet was gone; there was something different about the store; there was an almost palpable kinetic energy in the air.

Peter was there. 

This mild-mannered, insecure kid from the South was nonplussed the first few times being around Peter. He challenged and engaged and tested your mettle. He demonstrated interest and extended trust and generosity. He unabashedly shared his knowledge and expressed his opinions. I slowly became a steady customer, as I slowly got to know Peter and his employees, Tom Goldwasser, Nancy Kosenka, John McVey, Nick Nicholas and, a little later, Burton Weiss. I was one of the many that regularly visited Serendipity, was extended credit without questions, and rarely left without books.

Later that summer Peter invited me to share in one of his passions, a Giants game at Candlestick Park. Peter drove several of us to the game in the Serendipity Volkswagen van and on the way exited in downtown San Francisco. He said we were stopping to pick up someone named Franklin, and he made a point of noting that this Franklin and I would like each other, that we had things in common. I didn’t know who Peter was talking about, but soon we stopped near Union Square and into the van climbed Franklin Gilliam, the fabled owner of the Brick Row Book Shop, a shop I had visited numerous times, but I had not met its owner because he had always either been at lunch, out of town, or simply not there. Peter was keenly perceptive as usual: Franklin and I did indeed have a great deal in common and from that point on became close friends.

As my career in journalism fizzled out, my interest in antiquarian books and the book business grew, and by 1979 I was actively seeking a job somewhere, anywhere, in any position, in the Bay Area book trade. I told every friendly bookseller of my desire, but no job offer was forthcoming. Then one evening in early December the phone rang at home. It was Peter. The conversation went something very close to this:

P:  John, it’s Peter Howard. Are you still looking for a job in the book trade?
J:  Yes.
P:  Well, I need a bookkeeper.
J:  But, but I don’t know anything about bookkeeping. I  cannot even
     remember the last time I  reconciled my own checking account.
P:  [momentary silence] You said you wanted a job in the book trade.
     Are you willing to learn?
J:  Uhhhh, well, yes, of course I am.
P:  Then when do you begin?

I began less than a month later, the first of January, 1980. Just before that Jean Peters’ work Collectible Books: Some New Paths, a group of essays on book collecting, had been published. Peter was the author of chapter nine, entitled “American Fiction since 1960.” Serendipity had copies for sale, of course, and Peter inscribed one to me as follows: “For John Crichton / formerly a friend / and a friendly / collector / Soon doomed to be / employee & / inside another book / home / Peter / Christmas 1979.”

I was not sure what “soon doomed to be employee” meant, but it didn’t take long to find out. I was the bookkeeper at Serendipity for three full years, and in that time I learned a tremendous amount about the mechanisms, machinations and personalities of the antiquarian book trade. Peter was generous with his knowledge about customers and books. He was generous with his money: he paid well. He was generous with the terms he extended to customers and consigners. He constantly gave back to his business. He worked hard and long hours. He taught by example. Being an employee there meant accepting that Serendipity was run by Peter’s rhyme and Peter’s reason, and interpreting that on a daily basis could be a challenge, but it was also rewarding.

My tenure at Serendipity was interrupted by the unexpected invitation of Franklin Gilliam, whom Peter had introduced me to seven years before, to purchase the Brick Row Book Shop. Peter's response to my announcement was mildly amused surprise, with supportive words of advice and encouragement, and only a bit of gentle challenging.

What I got from Serendipity Books propelled me into the antiquarian book trade. It was an experience that made my future in this profession possible - a once doomed employee perhaps, but one who had indeed been welcomed inside another book home, and with many thanks to Peter, has never left it.

- John Crichton

John Crichton is the proprietor of The Brick Row Book Shop.

Photo by Ken Sanders.

“the ayatollah...”

Peter Howard stands out as an original even in a trade known for being one of the last holdouts of the rugged individual.

I met Peter in the 1970s with my late husband Franklin  who coined the often used nickname, the Ayatollah. In Northern California, where Warren Howell was known as the Emperor, Peter was the Ayatollah. Since then I have had many encounters with Peter some of which have made me furious to the point of wanting to strangle him and others that have totally charmed me.  It is hard to imagine book fairs without him. Something will have gone out of our world when he leaves it. Something besides his intensity and passion.

My favorite is when he taught at Rare Book School in Charlottesville in the summer of 1994. 

Peter, who many of his students and the Special Collections staff  of the University of Virginia Library had never met but only knew by reputation as a legendary dealer of modern firsts, appeared in his usual attire of shorts, Greek sailor's hat with skinned knees and a fanny pack.  I should also hasten to add a rather unkempt beard.  This truly brilliant bookman looked to those who encountered him that summer like “an idiot savant on the loose."  Vintage Peter. 

- Mary Cooper Gilliam

Mary Cooper Gilliam is the proprietress of Franklin Gilliam Rare Books.

Photo by Ken Sanders.

“no ordinary mortal”

I first became aware of Peter Howard and his particular universe  just before setup for a New York Book Fair in the early 1970s.  I think it was in a top floor ballroom of the Hotel Roosevelt and a large group had assembled waiting for access to the room.  One of the patrician ladies who was then prominent in the New York book trade called my attention to a somewhat scruffy group sitting on the floor possibly enhancing their waiting time with a recreational smoke.

“Those hippies from California,” she sniffed.

I soon found out that “those hippies” were a contingent from Serendipity Books.

Peter Howard is by any standard one of the giants of the trade in our time. He exemplifies one of the principal reasons I have always found the trade so appealing: you can get to do it your way.  And Peter certainly does do it his way.  Any ordinary mortal would be dwarfed sitting among the tall shelves and piles of books at Serendipity.  But Peter is no ordinary mortal and the solitary figure sitting at the desk in that vast sea of books was, it was immediately obvious to anyone entering his premises, emperor of his realm.  He very possibly would not bother to look up or even acknowledge your existence and his style surely alienated many people.   It is often taken for rudeness, but knowing what I do about Peter and his many, many kindnesses to so many,  I have come to believe it is a kind of shyness.  (Peter might very well vehemently dispute this as I think he enjoyed his gruff, often forbidding persona, a role that shields him from interacting with fools, whom he doesn’t suffer gracefully.)

There is no dispute that Peter is a whiz at the core of this business, buying and selling books.  He has bought some of the major collections of our time, either alone or in partnership with a number of other dealers he worked with.  In addition, he handles many books on consignment from fellow dealers to their mutual profit.  It is hard to imagine any serious collector or dealer or librarian who has not, at one time or another, bought books from Peter.  Peter  has the knack for pricing books at just that critical level where the potential buyer is  at least tempted.  But Peter is a great deal more than a successful merchant, and his bibliographic advice has been invaluable to many of the most important libraries in the country.

The best of the major booksellers usually spawn additional generations of booksellers.  Serendipity has been no exception.  Among those who got their start under Peter’s eye are John Crichton of Brick Row Books, Tommy Goldwasser, and Burton Weiss.  I am sure there are others who I will be embarrassed not to have recalled, but I beg their indulgence.  The combination of writing under deadline and a balky memory are my excuses.  And how can one scan his recollections of Peter Howard without mentioning his faithful, long-time employee, Nancy Kosenka.

In addition to those who worked for him,  a solar system of satellites revolved around Peter:  scouts, beginning booksellers and the like and I have heard many stories concerning Peter’s  financial and moral support to them.   Rude, aloof, yea, even boorish to some, he has been, in the best sense of the phrase, a soft touch to those truly in need.

Peter’s contributions to the trade include serving on the Board of Governors of the ABAA and his election to president from 1992 to 1994.  He has also been a faculty member at the Antiquarian Book Trade Seminar in Colorado.  

When I think of Peter the visual that comes to mind is Peter sitting in his booth at a book fair invariably wearing the cap of his beloved San Francisco Giants for whom he has been a season ticket-holder for many years. 

One of the glories of the antiquarian book trade is that it has room in its tent for many practitioners who don’t quite fit any standard mold.  We not only tolerate eccentrics, we embrace them, united in our common love of books.  Peter Howard has made an indelible mark on the antiquarian book world of our time.

-Ed Glaser

Ed Glaser is the proprietor of Edwin V. Glaser Rare Books.

Photo: Ken Sanders.

Peter and Alison, travelers also
And more, returning refurbished
With new tongues and new speech
(Diligently furnished                 
                        with new words),
Clattering, chattering
Like an old keyboard.
A new conscience and new imperatives
New sharpened...
When a Howard picks you              
                     you stay picked,
Sometimes uncertain  
  but happily so,
What may be too far
or at least the wrong direction;
Peter in Manhattan: does anyone know
The name of this restaurant
Or how to spot the Panchen Lama...?
A spotlight resounds: Alison singing
like six dozen angels; her words
turn to water; and everything
sings. swings. swings. sings.  
                                 swings.                           
                                 swings.

-Eric Korn

Eric Korn is the "notorious antiquarian, mountebank, raconteur," and proprietor of M E Korn Books in London. The above is excerpted from For Peter and Alison, travellers, a work in progress.

Photo: Ken Sanders.

dear peter:

How could anyone fully grasp and then describe that wonderful complexity known as Peter B. Howard?

For nearly fifty years now I have admired (and appreciated) watching your progress through this difficult and uncompromising life as a master bookseller. Of course, it hasn’t always been wine and roses between us. At first, when we were very young men (as compared to now) there were the few inevitable misunderstandings that once or twice lead to unkind (if unspoken) thoughts. Because after all is said and done, book collecting and book selling are competitive by their very nature.

But those trivial misunderstandings were long ago and count for nothing now.

As a book collector, I cheerfully confess I learned most of what I know from three outstanding teachers: Henry W. Wenning, Margie Cohn, and Peter B. Howard. All three of these unique booksellers not only taught me how to conduct myself properly as a collector, but also by example taught me, in many ways, how to conduct myself as an individual in the business world. What more could anyone ask of one’s peers and associates?

Peter, in so many ways and for such a long time you set the tone and the standard for your book selling peers. Your taste, energy, ethics, generosity and determination to succeed were and are an inspiration and a marvel.

Finally in this too short life, all good things must come to an end. I am now a retired publisher (if still an active collector!) and you have now, because of illness, withdrawn from active book selling. Looking back, please let me assure you that I recognize and admire all the good you have accomplished, over so many years, for so many.

In friendship and with every best personal wish,

- John Martin

John Martin is the visionary patron of Charles Bukowski, and founder, publisher, and for thirty-six years sole proprietor of Black Sparrow Press
__________

[1] Tomorrow: Part 3.

__________

Booktryst thanks Dan Adams, John Baxter, Taylor Bowie, John Crichton, Mary Gilliam, Ed Glaser, Eric Korn, John Martin, David Mason, James Pepper, Ken Sanders, Charles Seluzicki, Ralph Sipper, Martin Stone, Michael R. Thompson, Jeff Towns, and Vic Zoschak for their contributions.

A special thank you to James Pepper and John Crichton for their assistance with getting this project off the ground. Very special thanks to James Pepper and Ralph Sipper for their ongoing encouragement and support.

__________

[Sold Out]. A print issue of A Wake For the Still Alive: Peter B. Howard is available in a limited edition of 200 copies for sale, at $20 postpaid. All proceeds will be donated to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's (ABAA) Benevolent Fund.

Ordering information:

Payment by check only, payable to: Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund.

Mail to:

Stephen J. Gertz
c/o David Brass Rare Books, 23901 Calabasas Road, suite 2060, Calabasas, CA 91302.
__________

__________

A Wake For The Still Alive: Peter B. Howard

Photo: Ken Sanders.

introduction

I saw Robinson Crusoe at the 2007 California Antiquarian Book Fair in San Francisco.

He was standing in one of the aisles around twenty-five yards away from my vantage point and looked like an aged, unkempt and unshaven derelict marooned far too long, surviving on a diet far too short on calories. He was wearing a sarong-like thing wrapped around his waist, sandals, a rumpled shirt and a knit cap with earflaps. It seemed as if he had just come off a three day binge on arrack, the liquor made from coconut sap.

It was Peter Howard, proprietor of the legendary Serendipity Books in Berkeley, California, who appeared to be shipwrecked on Book Island.

In a business bursting with vivid personalities, Peter flies off the color wheel. His brilliant white light enters a prism and emerges in wild hues rarely seen in nature; Pantone is rumored to want him as the subject of a major chromatics R&D project. He’s a singleton, and not to every one’s taste; what is savory to some is sour to others.

That’s their problem – as Peter will be the first to declare.

For the uninitiated, some background on Serendipity Books, courtesy of a few online wags:

“This is one of the oddest cultural institutions in the U.S. It's like a psychotic, literary Xanadu where one wanders through the cluttered mind of a cranky, highly literate old man where it's perpetually 1978, wondering whether this is actually a bookstore or an epically vast warehouse/museum of books where everything is for sale...

"You are practically assaulted by the seemingly total lack of regard for the potential book buyer the minute you walk through the door. The misanthropic, wheat-from-the-chaff-separating feng shui of the main room says ‘Are you *sure* you want to come in here? Are you *really* sure? Well, then, brave book and/or poetry lover, enter and.................good luck!’ followed by crusty laughter, which echoes through the 38 rooms and hallways of this cryptic yet surprisingly undusty warehouse (and I mean warehouse) of books and printed stuff...

"There are books all the way up to the ceiling, so absurdly far up (like 27 feet or something) that they are almost guaranteed to never come down. In addition to the shelves, both fixed and (apparently) movable, there are piles of books. Everywhere. There are paper bags and paper bags and paper bags filled with books, on the floor and in the aisles, and there are cabinets filled with prints and folios and ephemera and beetles and god knows what else...”

“This is the single most amazing place I have ever been! When I dream about getting lost in a maze of forgotten books... this is what it looks like.”

“Do not utter the words ‘amazon dot com’ here. I'm also not sure what comes first with the Serendipity experience, the vertigo or hairline fractures from stumbles & falls.”

“I'm agnostic, but if there is a heaven, I imagine it's just like Serendipity Books.”

And on Peter:

“Imagine paper bags stuffed with unshelved books lining narrow walkways and the sounds of a cranky, querulous old man barking orders to his assistant.”

“This bookstore could rival all the antiquarian bookstores on the East Coast if the owner wasn't such an ass...If you go there do it for browsing only and avoid the owner at all costs.”

"I think the owner is perfectly curmudgeonly and almost intimidating, as any antiquarian book owner should be. However, when you buy an interesting book, he lights up with questions for you about why you selected it and what you think, and it turns out he is quite nice!"

Yes, indeed. The rind is tough but the pulp is sweet.

I am not a friend of Peter; I am, at best, an acquaintance drawn to him by reports of his countless acts of kindness and generosity to many over forty years that have filtered down to me. Our mutual friend, Brian Kirby, who is one of Peter’s closest friends and associates, vouches for him, Jim Pepper, this one, that one; a long list. That’s good enough for me.

Many owe their entry into the trade to Peter. I don’t; blame Bill Dailey for that. But I owe Peter something, I believe, more valuable.

He forced me to confront my prejudices. I could have – and did, for the first few years I was in the trade – write him off as a Class-A jerk, a snap-judgment amongst many I was prone to make as a younger man. As people I knew and respected began to tell me more and more about him I realized that I could continue to remain secure in my superficial appraisal or do the difficult thing and force myself to make the effort to get to know and understand him.

It ain’t easy. Is there a firm, unwavering opinion this often brusque and cantankerous (yet supremely sensitive) individual doesn’t have?

I only see him at book fairs. On the prowl for Kirby, I routinely stop by Serendipity’s booth, and just as routinely Peter tells me that Brian isn’t around and I wind up contenting myself with brief, often awkward (on my part) sit-downs with him who, I’ve discovered, has a highly attenuated sense of right and wrong, and a keen ethical and moral code. Once, Peter pretty much ran off the rails when he learned that I once worked for somebody who didn’t provide health insurance. “Why would you want to work for someone like that?” Uh, food, clothing and shelter. “No! You can’t do that! It’s wrong.”

Suffice it to say, at a time when employers are cutting benefits, Peter continues to offer a very generous and enviable health insurance package to his employees.

Over years of observation, I have come to appreciate this highly complex man, who can elicit the entire spectrum of emotions from others, as one of the great characters in literature - though there’s not a fictional bone in his body. He’s All-True, all the time. His truth. It’s often difficult to bear but worth the weight.

Reader’s Digest used to publish an ongoing series, The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met. Had they run a piece on Peter that would have been it, end of story; can’t top this individual.

Peter is not, by any standard, a saint yet he is one whose entire life has been, in some way, in service to books with a firm regard of their essential cultural sacredness; he has a philosophy of books and bookselling, and a strong view of the role and responsibility of the rare book dealer within culture as torchbearer and tastemaker, as a mediator between the past and present, and oracle of the future. These facts, for me, provided the path toward acceptance, admiration, respect and, ultimately, affection for one I have little standing with; while I’m sure he’d recognize me, I’d be surprised if he remembered my name without prompting.

At last February’s L.A. Book Fair, having learned that Peter and Thanatos were becoming a bit too chummy, I stopped by to say hello and pay my respects.

During our brief interchange I told him that his complete and utter lack of charm was, to me, his most charming attribute. He smiled. I then asked if there was anything I could do for him. He could have responded in any one of many justifiably self-interested ways. Instead:

“Just be a good book seller.”

The guy’s inching toward death and what he wants from me – and, tacitly, everyone else – is to be a good book seller and, by extension, a credit to the profession.

That just about tore me up.

Peter was born to be and will end a consummate book seller and an idealist who never quit. His epitaph should read: He Died With His Books On. 

- SJG

Photo: Eddie Rosenbaum for the Daily Californian.

“his generosity is boundless...”

A Los Angeles rare book dealer named Roy Bleiweiss first acquainted me with the notion of owning first editions. This was back in the mid-seventies when I was working at the venerable Westwood Bookstore, an institution established 1936. I had always been an avid reader long before meeting Roy, though never a collector. This changed in the course of several visits to his well appointed shop on Westwood Boulevard. After acquiring a small lot of Paul Bowles’ titles, the quest for firsts became my preoccupation.

Though Roy had inspired me, it was Peter Howard who grounded me in this peculiar vocation. For this to happen, I had the good fortune of working with a gentleman named Robert Sheldon. After a stint working for North Point Press and Capra Press, Robert took over the job of managing the Westwood Bookstore. One day he presented me with a small stack of rare book catalogues. Chief among these was an unprepossessing plain white booklet from the Berkeley firm of Serendipity Books. The cover indicated the contents dealt exclusively with writers of the 1960s. Having come to my maturity during this era, I was drawn to the author’s represented. Some like Pynchon, Kesey, Wolfe, hold their own today, while a great many others hardly rate a footnote. What appealed to me most was that I could afford to purchase many of these books on my meager salary.

The Hemingways, Fitzgeralds, and Faulkners, were already escalating in prices beyond my means. My workplace, though confined in scope to retail sales was, in the best tradition of eccentric operations, inclined not to ever return stock, assuming it was meant to sell and would eventually. Soon I was pouring over the inventory adding first edition copies of “Another Roadside Attraction” and “Killer Angels” to my budding collection. Assisted by the information provided in Mr. Howard’s ephemeral little booklet, I was beginning to forge a direction to pursue my passion.

It wasn’t long before I determined to pay Serendipity Books a visit. In those days the store was located on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley. In the company of my wife, I paid the first of many visits to Mr. Howard’s shop and, in short order, became familiar with the controlled chaos which is the hallmark of this remarkable destination.

My first impression of Mr. Howard was that of a keenly focused, and earnest individual who, when engaged by someone in matters pertaining to books would speak directly to the issue, often imparting some insight or acerbic observation. He could also be dismissive if so inclined. Before introducing myself, I took ample time to study this tall, self assured person who was clearly the nexus of authority in the establishment. This tentative approach has served me best in all my dealings with Peter over the ensuing years.

Apart from a friendly “Hi” upon arrival, I constrain myself from barging into a discussion with a man who always seemed preoccupied with some weighty matter at hand; I bide my time for that perfect opportunity to invite myself into his world. That golden moment might often involve the subject of baseball, and certainly when it concerned his beloved San Francisco Giants. On occasion, I would remind Peter that I was a die-hard Atlanta Braves fan, and each time I would be left with the impression that he could only just grudgingly forgive me that folly.

There were moments of discovery and even adventure over the years. Once, while still at his Shattuck location, Peter took me to a warren of rooms serving as an annex around the corner from his shop. Another time, after the store moved down to University Avenue, I was shuttled to a warehouse on San Pablo containing a horde of boxes sequestered from the light of day, bringing to mind the final scene in “Indiana Jones.”

Many have commented on the complexities of Peter’s codes for distinguishing the provenance of the vast accumulation of stock. Despite the fact that he has encouraged me to study it, I remain ignorant to this day of its arcane structure. However, I marvel at the quiet workmanlike way he will ponder repricing a stack of books at check-out time. There was the penciled price, and then there would be Peter’s special price. 

Once he suggested I take a look at some new arrivals. This resulted in my obtaining a lovely copy in dust jacket of Thorne Smith’s “Topper.” I sensed at the time he wished for me to have it, and had I not bought it then and there, he’d have frowned on my lack of proper judgement. Another time, early in my bookselling career, I mentioned to Peter how a certain book dealer, known throughout the trade for being reluctant to pay his bills, had been deadbeating me for many months. My chances of ever being paid seemed bleak. A little more than a week passed, and the remittance arrived in my mailbox. Bad professional character was something Peter would not abide. His generosity is boundless and seeks no recompense. However, a contribution to the ABAA’s benevolent fund was always deemed appropriate.

When I think of Serendipity it is not just Peter Howard I think of with fondness, it’s also of dear Nancy the most genial of book people, who has never failed to greet me or my wife Edda upon arrival with anything less than genuine warmth and enthusiasm. To be sure, everyone associated with this landmark operation has reflected the highest level of Collegiality. Many times Edda would pop her head through the door to ask me “How much longer do you need?” To which, I would reply- “Oh, maybe another hour or two.” Then she’d be off to shop, assured I was in good company in her absence. In perfect truth, there was never enough time in Peter’s House to find that elusive item you knew was there, but had not yet found.

- Dan Adams

  
Dan Adams is the proprietor of Waverly Books in Santa Monica, CA.

“’my rhyme. my reason...'"

Driving into Berkeley with my wife in 1986, I had no expectation of meeting anyone like Peter Howard. Though my experience of book-dealers was limited, most had been diffident, reticent individuals, given neither to flamboyance nor open-handedness. My horizons were about to be widened.

In those days, Serendipity Books was situated in cramped quarters on Shattuck. In fact, by ill-chance, we had arrived on the very day the business was transferring to the former wine warehouse on University which it occupies to this day. Workmen hauled crates through the front door, supervised by a man in a sweat-soaked t-shirt whom I took to be their foreman, until he turned his attention to us and asked what kind of books interested us.

I picked up a volume lying on a disordered tabletop. It was the first edition of Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister, in that memorable Boris Artzybashef dust-wrapper; the one with the curtain delicately supported by an ice pick.

“Like this,” I said.

“No problem,” said Howard, brushing aside the question of price. “But look around.” He waved towards narrow, book-choked corridors receding into the shadows. “Maybe you’ll find something else.”

We did as we were told, occasionally stumbling over items that had spilled from the shelves. I picked up one, a thick sheaf of photocopies in a card portfolio. It was Dashiell Hammett’s FBI file. Clearly I’d come to the right place.

Over the next hour I scooped up a first of William Gaddis’s doorstop novel The Recognitions, a copy of I, Libertine by Frederick R. Ewing, alias science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, and, for my wife, a photographer, Naked City by Arthur Felig, aka Weegee the Famous. None were priced, nor had they been arranged in any order, except that which existed in the head of the proprietor. As Peter snapped at a visitor who complained that his stock lacked rhyme or reason, “My rhyme, my reason!”

At the front door, cartons continued to flow out. Glancing at our finds, Peter said “Why don’t you go have lunch? The place across the road is good. Tell them I sent you. Try the crisp skin chicken.”

The chicken was, indeed, superior, but when we tried to pay, the waitress waved aside our money. “It’s on Peter.”

None of this is by way of showing Peter Howard as amiable and avuncular. Rather it speaks to the contradictions in his character. Only later, for instance, did I discover that, following a car accident, he had lost all sense of taste. His appreciation of the crisp-skin chicken was, like that of any other food, entirely intellectual.

Nor did his casual attitude to pricing indicate an indifference to profit. Rather, he saw what the market would bear in any given situation, and set the rate accordingly.

On my last visit, he asked “Do you have Peter Jackson’s email address?”

“I can probably lay my hands on it.”

“I’ll pay you $1250 for it.”

“Why?”

Silently he led me to the back room where locked safes held his treasures. From one, he extracted a yellowing typescript in card covers. The Beast by Edgar Wallace - the embryo of what became King Kong, the remake of which Jackson was about to direct. If he paid $1250 for the address, what did he ask for the typescript. Two zeros more, at least.

On my first visit in 1986, he waved aside payment for the books we’d chosen. “I’ll invoice you,” he said. “Pay me when you get back home.”

Partly this trust was due to the computer being down until he could re-connect it in the new premises, but he was also delighted to find that my wife had photographed the wedding of our mutual friend Martin Stone. It put us on a slightly higher plane; not friends, but something more than clients. Peter immediately commissioned a full set of large-size prints. When Martin next visited Serendipity, he was taken aback to see them displayed at every corner of the shop.

The marriage barely outlasted that trip. And I never paid for the books. Instead, in the maelstrom of divorce, I boxed up some of my first editions and consigned them, ill-addressed, to Peter, not so much in payment as in abject expression of my inability to deal with anything so quotidian as a debt. Years later, back in San Francisco, I made a somewhat shame-faced return visit to Serendipity. Peter greeted me with, if not affability, then a gruff cordiality. “Got something for you,” he said, and handed me an envelope. It contained an invoice itemising how much the books fetched, and a cheque for the balance after deducting what I owed. Of the delay and the unconventional method of payment, nothing was said.

- John Baxter

John Baxter is a film critic,  novelist, and author of A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict.

"there will never be another bookseller like Peter Howard..."

I can't even remember a time when I didn't know Peter, when I was either having fun with him, being pissed off at him, exchanging strong words, doing business, talking about books and writers - or sometimes a combination of all of those.

One funny snapshot I keep in my mind about Peter dates back to the mid-1980s, at the first Vancouver Book Fair. Our booths were next to each other, and Peter was in rare form the whole time. I noticed an older woman enter his booth and pick a book off the shelf, which she started to leaf through while holding onto a shopping bag with one hand.

When Peter saw this from his chair across the room, I heard him bellow "BOTH HANDS!" And when the woman paid no attention he started repeating "BOTH HANDS! BOTH HANDS! BOTH HANDS!" until she realized that Peter was addressing her! She was so flustered I'm surprised she didn't drop the book on the floor as she hastily left the booth.

But my favorite memory and my favorite day with Peter is one  I can pinpoint to an exact date: Sunday, October 20, 1991. I was finishing up a happy little trip to the Bay Area and had made arrangements to arrive at Serendipity in the late morning, some eight hours before my flight back to Seattle.

When I arrived around eleven in the morning, Peter was there and I was actually pleased that he and I were alone. Everybody knows the public persona of Peter, and how he is when he's in front of a large audience or when he's being distracted by ten things at once. But this Sunday, he was quite relaxed, and as I scouted the shop in my usual unorganized fashion, we chatted about anything and everything under the sun, from books to food to politics and real estate.

Around one, we took a little break to go outside for a breath of fresh air. And that's when I saw, up in the hills, a small fire burning very brightly. We both remarked that it should be put out shortly, and went back inside for more work and scouting.

But I was left with an uneasy feeling and around three I went outside and immediately summoned Peter. The fire had quintupled in size, as this was the beginning of the tragic Oakland Hills Firestorm, which killed some twenty-five people and destroyed millions of dollars worth of property.

Now, my original plan had been to take a cab to the airport but Peter insisted that given the spreading fire it would be difficult (he was right). So we piled my suitcase and ourselves into Peter's van and headed for SFO. By this time, ashes were raining down in Berkeley and for a moment I imagined what it might have been like to be In Pompeii in 79 AD! Peter was at his best as we navigated the side streets and stayed off the freeways, which were already becoming jammed. He got me to the airport in plenty of time, stuck around to make sure my flight would be taking off, and away he went. An hour or so later, the plane did depart and we flew through a huge cloud of ashes - and only then did it really hit me that this was a huge disaster.

I treasure the memory of that day, not only for Peter's kindness but also for the rare chance to spend time with him on a totally one-on-one basis. After that day and in years since, we had a couple of quarrels but our bond remained secure. I am very glad to be able to call Peter Howard a friend of longstanding, as well as a veritable force of nature in the book trade. The most obvious cliché is to say that "There will never be another bookseller like Peter Howard," but it's true. Thank you, PBH!

- Taylor Bowie

Taylor Bowie is a rare bookseller and bon vivant Seattle, WA.
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Part [2] [3] [4] [5].

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Booktryst thanks Dan Adams, John Baxter, Taylor Bowie, John Crichton, Mary Giliam, Ed Glaser, Eric Korn, John Martin, David Mason, James Pepper, Ken Sanders, Charles Seluzicki, Ralph Sipper, Martin Stone, Michael R. Thompson, Jeff Towns, and Vic Zoschak for their contributions.

A special thank you to James Pepper and John Crichton for their assistance with getting this project off the ground. Very special thanks to James Pepper and Ralph Sipper for their ongoing encouragement and support.

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[SOLD OUT]. A print issue of A Wake For the Still Alive: Peter B. Howard is available in a limited edition of 200 copies for sale, at $20 postpaid. All proceeds will be donated to the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America's (ABAA) Benevolent Fund.

Ordering information:

Payment by check only, payable to: Antiquarian Booksellers' Benevolent Fund.

Mail to:

Stephen J. Gertz
c/o David Brass Rare Books, 23901 Calabasas Road, suite 2060, Calabasas, CA 91302.
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