The Pope's Bookbinder

by David Mason

  As usual, Jerry was right. And as all dealers learn, no matter how much you study, there will always be many areas where you can’t compete with a good specialist or a person knowledgeable in areas which don’t interest you. This is the way it should be and even though the Internet seems to have wiped out much of the advantage the knowledgeable specialist has, that is still true. There will always be an edge for the man who knows his subject and there is nothing to match many years of experience which confers subtle benefits no Internet can steal.

  “Age, experience and cunning will trump youth every time,” says the quote which my father-in-law had pasted over his work station.

  The first noticeable manifestation of the bookseller’s disease is when the bookseller begins to hide books, usually in the backroom, out of the sight of visiting dealers. There are problems with this method. When the more knowledgeable dealer appears, the bookseller would love to ask what his hidden book is worth, but since he knows that his colleague will want to buy it if it’s a good book, he doesn’t dare show it, again for fear he will be robbed. He conveniently ignores the fact that his very ignorance means that he himself stole it—albeit due to his ignorance, not his venality—from whatever innocent civilian he bought it from. (Maybe his suffering comes from this; it would be nice to think so.)

  We had such a man in Toronto, one of the worst cases I’ve known personally, made even more painful to witness because this man was an honest, honourable man who would no more have cheated someone than he would have stolen. I considered him to be a very good used bookseller, but he never went over a certain level. He sold general used books and when he started to see some of his special books in the catalogues of more knowledgeable dealers at considerably more money he began to change.

  He would hide any book in his backroom which he thought might be good, and soon the backroom was full. The backroom began to get bigger, encroaching on the store as it did (bookshelves make great walls in themselves—move them forward, the shop gets smaller, the backroom gets bigger).

  Within a few years this man’s backroom was 90% of the store, so jammed with bags full of what he believed to be treasures that he couldn’t allow any access even if he’d wanted to.

  The bookseller Croft-Cooke describes so amusingly was such a dealer, although he suffered a variation of this disease which renders his case my all-time favourite.

  This man’s peculiar variation of “the illness” came from his notion that other dealers, aware of his hidden treasure trove in the back room, would disguise themselves as a ploy to gain access to its contents.

  Consequently everyone who innocently entered the shop was suspect. Croft-Cooke was friendly with the man, perhaps because he understood the futility of attempting to gain access to the hidden stock. Some elderly lady would inquire if he had some old novel and when she left the bookseller would look knowingly at Croft-Cooke and say, “She doesn’t fool me. She’s really a dealer.”

  One day Croft-Cooke was in the shop when the postman entered, said good morning, deposited the mail on the desk and left. The bookseller turned to Croft-Cooke, nodding as if in admiration, and said, “He’s a clever one, that one. Oh, yes. You probably thought he really was a postman.”

  Chapter 19

  William Hoffer and the ABAC Wars

  Sometime in the summer of 1970 I sat in my tiny new shop on Toronto’s Gerrard Street waiting for customers, a common activity of antiquarian booksellers, then and now. On that day the empty silence was suddenly broken by a tall gangly figure resembling a giant demented stork, who came bounding into my tiny shop, barely able to restrain his flapping arms.

  “I hate Toronto,” he boomed, not bothering with any preliminaries. “I always get paranoid—every time I come here. Why do I come here?” he paused, as though awaiting my explanation. “I’m Bill Hoffer.” Still shouting, he paused and glared at me truculently, daring me, it seemed, to contradict him.

  We spent a couple of hours measuring and assessing one another and discussing the state of the book trade in Canada. His conversation was constantly interspersed with the many reasons why Toronto needed to be wiped off the face of the earth.

  In spite of his obvious weirdness I found myself liking him. When he launched into a diatribe, which he did often, he would become intoxicated by his own rhetoric, then leap up bellowing and, like an actor, pace the store as though it were the stage of a theatre. He was, perhaps, the first person I ever met whose voice merited the word stentorian.

  While I’ve been avoiding it for many years, I have always known that I must eventually write about Bill Hoffer. The reason I avoided it was because it is widely believed that Hoffer and I were enemies. It is true that in the last days of his life we had broken completely; indeed the last time I spoke to him, I publicly and loudly berated him in a bookstore in Ottawa in front of a good portion of the Canadian book trade. This was at a pre-bookfair party, meaning everyone in the crowded store was a bookseller or a bookseller’s moll, all colleagues of both of us. Hoffer had entered, greeting people as he progressed through the crowd of eating, drinking and jabbering booksellers and, reaching me said “Hello David,” with a casual manner, as though all the events of the past couple of years had not occurred. As though the Canadian trade had not been torn asunder, turning friends into enemies, arousing anger and resentment that I expect in some cases will only disappear as people die off. I lost it. His idea seemed to be that we should pretend that his craziness hadn’t decimated much of the conviviality which had, till then, existed amongst all the members of the small Canadian trade—as though the ensuing insanity was just business or something, and that here, on a social occasion, we should just ignore the personal repercussions. I yelled at him. “Don’t speak to me Hoffer! Go to the other end of the store. Get away from me, goddamn you.” I was furious. The store went dead silent—forty or fifty booksellers together, all silent, a rare situation. Hoffer was shocked. He didn’t respond, but slunk over to Patrick McGahern at his desk behind the counter, leaned over and whispered something to Pat, then left the store. The hum of talk gradually began again, but everyone avoided looking at me.

  I went over to McGahern. “What did he say to you, Patrick?”

  “He said he didn’t appreciate being yelled at in my store,” replied McGahern.

  This will be the first of the many contradictions in Bill’s character that I will be pointing out. Here’s a guy who—admittedly with some help from his friends—had nearly destroyed the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of Canada (ABAC), certainly had created animosities which, in some cases, will never disappear, who was infamous for his attacks on people, blistering letters, loudly conducted insults and ejections from his store, and when someone whom he knows can defend himself yells at him in anger he slinks out like a naughty child who is being sent to his room. We never spoke again.

  The fact is that while Hoffer and I had many confrontations

  and he no doubt saw me as his main adversary in his anti-Toronto,

  anti-East in general, and anti-ABAC campaigns, we had fairly cordial relations when we weren’t involved in one of those periodic eruptions.

  The real reason for the perception that we were enemies was that I stood up to Hoffer—I wouldn’t let him get away with his insane silly attacks, so I was almost always in the forefront when it came time to battle.

  Many amongst those who didn’t automatically agree with him avoided those confrontations, some no doubt out of weariness at his incessant provocations, others perhaps because of their own less attractive character traits. And, of course, he had his acolytes, a group, mostly also in the west, who agreed with his paranoid views. But there was also a group which venerated him, men whom he had mentored, who believed they owed much to him for his teaching of them, for imbuing in them the principles of professional bookselling. I actually agreed with that. For instance, every dealer in western Canada whom I consider a very good dealer still pays
serious homage to Hoffer as a mentor and a friend, to whom they often publicly acknowledge their own great debt.

  I think we have to weigh this against the craziness.

  Almost no one in the Canadian trade will remember that a large expansion occurred in membership in the ABAC during the early to mid-seventies, with the bulk of the new members dealers from western Canada. And even fewer would credit that expansion mostly to the combined efforts of William Hoffer and myself, but so it was.

  After the war, Bernard Amtmann, a Viennese Jew who had emigrated to Canada after fleeing the Nazis and fighting in the French resistance, set up as a bookseller, first in Ottawa and then Montreal. He had bullied and cajoled several of his colleagues into forming a professional association in 1966, following the examples of the founding of such associations in several countries, such as in the Antiquarian Booksellers Association (ABA) in England and the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) in the United States. In Canada Amtmann organized it all, paid for everything out of his own pocket, then forced us—in spite of our timidity—into attending foreign book fairs and personally shamed us all into holding the first Canadian book fair ever, at York University.

  After he had done this, concentrating on his neighbours in Montreal, Toronto and the east in general, he had approached several western Canadian dealers to join, mostly soliciting their membership based on that age-old system, word of mouth—that is by their reputations, which had filtered east. I have in my own archive a letter from Amtmann to Don McLeod of McLeod’s Books in Vancouver announcing that he had been pronounced eligible and asking him to join, telling him he could pay the fees in installments, if necessary. That was typical of Bernard; to assume and acknowledge our mutual poverty and offer ways out before anyone used that as an excuse not to join.

  But he had only successfully recruited Hoffer, Hilton-Smith of Victoria and Ned Bowes of Vancouver, although, on Hilton-Smith’s recommendation, I believe he also solicited Steve McIntyre of Vancouver, who also didn’t join.

  I met McIntyre only once, on my first visit to Vancouver. He was amiable, but, I sensed, a loner. I also sensed he had that not uncommon affliction of booksellers, including me in those days, a propensity for drink. This was confirmed many years later when I purchased an extensive correspondence between him and Al Purdy which dealt pretty much entirely with books and alcohol.

  I liked McIntyre. He seemed lonely, with an undercurrent of deep sadness, yet he was eager for the bookselling gossip from the east. He questioned me very closely, nodding as he absorbed my answers. He was both highly respected by Vancouver booksellers and held in great affection by them, and I expect he was a crusty mentor to most. And he was obviously a real bookseller.

  It must be understood that amongst other social and political realities which Canada shares with the U. S., we have vast expanses and the sense of separation caused by thousands of miles, but unlike our American friends we also have a huge, near-

  empty prairie and an impressive range of mountains. Canada has a population one-tenth that of the U.S. and, unlike America, whose middle parts are dotted with lots of cities, our major cities are mostly in the lower parts of each province, near the border. So it is much harder to find a city of a size that could sustain large used bookstores in much of that vast expanse, or at least one worthy of a de-planing and all the extra expense that involves. Canadian dealers envy our American and British colleagues, who can hit many different towns in a day or two. Crossing Canada can mean a thousand miles between worthy bookstores. Our two ABAC colleagues in Saskatchewan, for instance, like to announce that only one Canadian dealer has ever visited either of their stores, and that was on a fishing trip. And it was the same dealer. I grew somewhat familiar with Calgary but only because my wife was from there and I frequently visited her family. Being there for other reasons allowed scouting and I generally did well not only because I didn’t need to pay for hotels but because other dealers seldom visited.

  Consequently the western Canadian dealers looked, and still look, south rather than east for their essential book connections—the average west coast dealer will be far more familiar with the bookstores of Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles than with any eastern Canadian shop.

  This exclusionary situation became of great concern to the executive of the ABAC, so when I announced in the early ’70s that I would be shortly travelling to Vancouver, Victoria and Calgary I was authorized (I was then an elected director of the ABAC)—in fact ordered—to speak to any western dealer whose shop passed muster, strongly urging them to join our association.

  Naturally, in Vancouver I started with Bill Hoffer. We spent a few evenings drinking and arguing about all sorts of east-west crap. I contradicted him bluntly every time he tried to introduce what I considered then, and still do, that petty provincial attitude where regional animosities or jealousies poison people to the point where they somehow see their fellow countrymen, or in this case their co-religionists, as enemies. This enraged me then and it still does, as it is unworthy of civilized people, especially when they are such civilized people as booksellers.

  We drank quite a lot. Indeed, we got drunk every night, but we already had formed an essential understanding, one that obviated all the many differences in viewpoint and personality and personal prejudices. While unspoken, it was apparent to us both that we shared one essential characteristic: we were both real booksellers. Bookselling to each of us was a vocation, not a job, and we had both embraced it fully, with no doubt that that was what we were meant to be. So, in spite of our differences, we reached a clear understanding. We were both serious in intention and we both shared the essential view that the ABAC should be inclusionary. Any bookseller who passed that crucial test, who was serious about being a professional bookseller, was a potential candidate. Bill and I agreed that for the future of the trade in Canada we should recruit every eligible bookseller.

  Don Stewart, who had purchased McLeod’s from its founder, Don McLeod, and still owns it, tells me that Bill talked him into joining in 1973. This must be around the time of my first trip west. I really don’t remember if that means Don would have joined after the Hoffer/Mason axis was formed, but I would like to think it was a result of our combined efforts. Certainly others

  did. And while I spoke of the ABAC in every shop I visited and strongly urged each owner to join, I left the real work of persuasion to Bill. Wisely so, for the western dealers, while not unfriendly, greeted me with the reserve and suspicion that foreigners from the east still seem to receive (often from those inhabitants who are themselves refugees from the east). I did the same in Calgary, which was even more isolated from the east than Vancouver, but with more success.

  Anyway, after my trip there, the first in some time by an eastern dealer—at least since the ABAC had been formed—I was able to return and report that Hoffer was on the job and that I expected the results to be good. And they were. We got just about every qualified dealer to join except for the two or three contrarians like McIntyre, found everywhere, who never join anything on principle.

  Most of the technical problems were easy, and our campaign resulted in several new western members, and our warm invitations to the new and rapidly growing Toronto book fair were accepted by several dealers; following which book fairs were begun in Vancouver, then Victoria, where eastern dealers came and grew to know their western colleagues.

  Most important, we quickly voted several westerners onto the Board of Directors so that the westerners also had a stake and say in association affairs. And, of course, personal friendships ensued amongst dealers who previously hadn’t known each other well. Then we directed the campaign eastward, first to our French colleagues in Quebec (we already had the English dealers, because the ABAC had started with Bernard Amtmann initiating it all with Grant Woolmer, Bill Wolfe and several other English dealers in Montreal being bullied into joining).

  The east coast followed that
, as the Maritime Provinces were dragooned. Curiously, what we never got and still don’t have, is any Newfoundland or Prince Edward Island dealer. I’ve known several Newfoundlanders who dealt in books but every one of them had to make their living elsewhere, while the PEI booksellers I’ve known never seemed to graduate past selling used paperbacks and books relating to the Island—sad.

  Cordial relations with Bill remained for quite a few years. They were always good when you were in his presence, but left to himself in his tiny garret I think his natural paranoia led to imaginary flights which, as often as not, resulted in yet another anti-Toronto or anti-eastern vendetta. And a flow of vicious letters would ensue.

  My later problems with Bill came from his constant disruption of ABAC affairs, where he invariably instigated strife amongst the members who cared, then divided them into opposite sides and sat back to watch the strife he had stirred up.

  I once spent a night drinking with Bill when he had just returned from a trip to Israel. I think it might have been his first visit to Israel, but I don’t really know. He was entertaining a group of booksellers with an absolutely brilliant monologue about Israel, which stunned us all with its incisive wit. It went on for almost an hour, while we all sat in rapt wonder at his insights and perception.

  It was wildly funny and incredibly anti-Semitic; which I thought then, and still do, is an important clue to both Bill’s character and, to a degree, to that crazy streak that caused so much trouble for him and the rest of us.