For local writers, loss of a beacon
Avenue Victor Hugo has been a beacon for local writers for nearly three decades, a place where they could browse the shelves in peace seeking the obscure and out-of-print. When the used-book shop closes in two weeks, many writers will mourn its passing with a mixture of sadness and frustration.
For Charles Coe, 52, of Cambridge, the bookshop was an ''oasis" in the neighborhood, a ''civilized environment" where employees had a passion for books.
''For the people who worked there it was part of a calling," says Coe, a poet and co-chairman of the Boston chapter of the National Writers Union. Chain bookstore employees can tap a computer keyboard and tell you if a book is in stock, but they can't engage in those ''intense, knowledgeable conversations" that were so common at Avenue Victor Hugo.
He acknowleged the competition from the Internet, but said the computer has its limitations.
''The Internet is great when I know exactly what I want," he says. ''But if you love books, the experience of just wandering cannot be replaced with the Internet. If you love books, there's simply no substitute for spending a rainy afternoon in a bookstore."
Indeed, it's the coziness that Suzanne E. Berger, a Boston area poet, will remember about the shop.
''It felt like the opposite of big chain stores," says Berger At Avenue Victor Hugo, ''it felt like the whole of the bookstore was a coziness, a natural coziness." And, she says, ''It always felt slightly exotic to go there, as if you were going to Paris."
Barbara Shapiro, 52, of Lexington, says the closing is sad for ''mid-list" writers like her who relied on owner Vincent McCaffrey, to carry their books.
''It's a bummer for everybody," says Shapiro, whose latest book is the psychological thriller ''The Safe Room." ''It's indicative again of the big boys pushing the little boys out. It's not just the small, independent bookstore being pushed out, it's also the small publishers and the small writers, like myself. There just isn't room for the little guy.
''What ends up happening is there's less choice on the part of the consumer -- the 'GAPing' of books. We like to think that books are different than jeans. Unfortunately, today, books are being treated the same as jeans."
Joan FitzGerald, 55, a writer who lives in Brookline, remembers going to the bookstore for a specific book and leaving with gems about ancient Tibetan death practices or excavations in Assyria.
''Victor Hugo is not about commerce," she says. ''It's about the imagination. It's about passion. I really mourn these places passing. The Internet doesn't work for me. It's too much at-a-distance for the imagination to kick in."
Sarah Smith, 56, of Brookline, spent hours browsing at the shop looking for books to read as background for her historical novels.
''I do a lot of research, and Avenue Victor Hugo has been a huge resource for me," says Smith, whose latest book is the literary thriller ''Chasing Shakespeares." ''I would go there with a particular book in mind and find three other books."
Gavin Grant and Kelly Link, writers and publishers in Northampton, met while they were working at the shop, and he even proposed to her there. (She accepted). They say the closing is a huge loss for Boston.
''It's incredibly sad," says Grant, 33, who, with Link, owns Small Beer Press. ''It's amazing that you would lose an intellectual space like that. . . . Boston will not be the same to us without Avenue Victor Hugo."
Pagan Kennedy, 41, of Somerville, bought old magazines at the shop in the mid-1980s and used their photos in her self-published zine ''Pagan's Head," which she eventually turned into a book.
''It just felt great when you walked in -- book people were in there instead of fashion people." 