Viva la résistance

Photo: Bettina Rheims

If ever there was a strange trip in publishing, Benoît Duteurtre was on it. The French anarchist and author of ten novels stood in the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square on April 12, speaking in French to a room full of sudden fans, while a former employee of the Cellar translated. Duteurtre was speaking to a room of Americans who, in all likelihood, had never heard of him before his satirical novel The Little Girl and the Cigarette was picked up for translation—his first into English—by a small house in Hoboken, New Jersey, called Melville House Books.

How this journalist and protégé of Samuel Beckett got there is an object lesson in the way independent publishing and independent book selling can work hand-in-hand to elevate an unknown book to veritable cult status (and sales success, but that comes later). It’s an old, frayed yarn about the odds against small-press books. A combination of low print runs, zero marketing budgets, scant media attention and tour difficulties put a book published by a small house at a sizable disadvantage to those published by conglomerates. Never mind that Duteurtre’s book has the other sales drawbacks of being a translation.

It all starts with an employee at the Book Cellar, who had heard about the book and decided he’d give it a shot. He liked it enough to recommend to another employee, who then read it in her book club. The two of them decided to file it under “staff recommended” and talk it up in the shop.

“It’s definitely something we’re passionate about,” says Katie Capaldi, one of the Cellar’s sales associates who got behind the book. “If we find a rare gem of a book, we create displays around it. We have pretty frequent customers and I know what they’ve read. Hopefully it spreads from there.”

According to the Book Cellar’s owner, Suzy Takacs, the book sold nine copies in March. That’s not the sort of total that would set corks a-popping at the Borders HQ in Ann Arbor—nor in the New York digs of any of the megapublishers. But for an unknown book, it’s the kind of figure that catches a bookstore owner’s eye, as well as the attention of its publisher.

“It sounds like hokum, but we’re really in this together,” says Dennis Johnson, Melville House’s publisher. “The fact is that they wouldn’t do this unless it was a good book and they felt comfortable recommending it to their customers. But indie publishers need a certain number of bookstores across the country really promoting your wares. We’ve got to foster those relationships because they’re doing something different than the chains.”
What happened next for this Little Girl was even less likely. Generally, when a book comes out in translation, the country of its origin gets behind it, either through some publicity or by sending the author to America for a tour. Generally, that comes with proper notice. The French Book Office called Johnson on a Thursday, and told him Duteurtre would be in America on Monday.

“We looked at stores where the book had been selling, called them up and said, ‘We know this is ridiculous, and it’s probably going to make you angry, but we have to ask, can we do an event?’” Johnson laughs. “The Book Cellar was the only store in America that could match where the embassy was sending him. It’s just smart business on the one hand, but on the other hand very few stores do that kind of business.”

According to Takacs, the book sold 21 copies in April, totaling 30 before this story went to press—“a ton” for the small store. And suddenly there was Duteurtre, at his only stop in an American bookstore, watching his little book about a little girl turn into a little sensation.

The Book Cellar (4736–38 N Lincoln Ave) has a copy of The Little Girl and the Cigarette ($14.95) set aside for you.