Aunt Agatha's: For The Love Of Mystery

The downtown bus was so crowded that those of us standing in the aisle were practically holding hands on the overhead railing. Glancing at the hand closest to mine, I saw a ring with - could it be? - two female symbols entwined. I looked more closely, carefully shielding my excitement. Yep, no doubt about it, I was standing next to, nearly leaning against, a lesbian. At 15, I knew I was gay and had a girlfríend my own age, but had never met an adult lesbian. While I struggled to come up with something to say, she pulled the exit cord and got off the bus. Being an avid reader of mystery novels, I knew just what to do. I casually followed her off the bus and then trailed her at a half-block's distance. Lucky for me, she wasn't going to the grocery store or to the Laundromat but rather to a bookstore. And not just any bookstore - a women's bookstore with a sizable lesbian literature collection. I had never even imagined such a place.

That day marked not only my entry into the lesbian community but also my first encounter - with an independent specialty bookstore. In ensuing years, I was to have many more such joyous encounters with small bookstores, discovering along the way the political and academic ideas that have since shaped my life. These days, when l'm looking for substance or spiritual sustenance, I go to Common Language Bookstore. For offbeat periodicals, I peruse the extravagant selection at Little Professor. And, when a long hard day of seemingly fruitless activism leaves me with a specific craving for a book that is absorbing but not too taxing, entertaining but not completely brainless, and above all affordable - I head for Aunt Agatha's to pick up a mystery novel.

Upon entering the store, I am greeted by the always affable Jamie Agnew who, along with his partner Robin Agnew, owns and operates the store. Rounding out the Aunt Agatha's crew are Assistant Managers Margaret (age 4) and Robert (age 1.5). They all swear they're not related to Spiro; Robert is most adamant on this point and I, for one, believe him. Unshelved books and garage-sale furnishings (the big Batman clock is my personal fave) combine to give the store a literary yet playful atmosphere, which is entirely appropriate to its offerings.

Established in 1991, Aunt Agatha's stocks a wide selection of new and used mysteries as well as a smaller collection of "true crime" books. Patterned after "Uncle Edgar's" in Minnesota, it's one of a new breed of bookstores devoted to the mysterious.

If you're not a mystery fan, you may be thinking, "Wide selection of mysteries? A mystery is a mystery, right?" Well, yes and no. It's true that all mysteries include some sort of puzzle which the protagonist tries to solve, but the variations on that basic theme are virtually endless. So, at Aunt Agatha's, "hard-boiled" detectives share shelf space with quirky lesbian activists, high-powered attorneys, out-of-work dancers, cartoon characters, and every variety of nosy neighbor that ever peeked through a window. The puzzles themselves generally revolve around murder or mayhem, but may also involve mundane or arcane subject matter concerning anything from art to zoology. (I recently read a mystery in which each of the main characters was an economist from a different school of thought and in which each character acted as his or her theory would predict.) Some books are plot-driven potboilers in which a mystery is simply set up and solved while others are nuanced novels in which complex social, political, or emotional issues are explored along with the more tangible mystery which drives the story.

The genre novel, like the sonnet or the three act musical comedy, is a sort of template. The format provides the frame within which the artist works. Within the parameters of the genre - in our case, the mystery and its resolution or lack thereof - anything goes. This has its advantages and its disadvantages. For example, recent mysteries revolving around racist violence, domestic assault, and police brutality have brought progressive analyses of the issues involved in such crimes to readers who would not pick up more explicitly "political" books. On the other hand, the "blank slate" provided by the genre has all too often been used to inscribe racist and sexist ideologies.

This is, of course, true of novels in general. However, there is a sort of built-in "law and order" orientation within the mystery genre and especially within the sub-genre in which the solver of the mystery is a police officer or other government agent. This has been offset in recent years by an upsurge of mystery writing by women, people of color, and others less invested in maintaining the status quo. In these novels, the government and its agents aren't portrayed quite so glowingly. Even so, mystery novels, like conspiracy theories, do tend to emphasize individual evil at the expense of exposing institutional forces. Still, much of the new writing is refreshingly progressive - often even more so than "serious" literature dealing with similar themes.

"True crime" is also a genre of sorts, although not so flexible as the mystery. Here, while some readers express a healthy disrespect for authority by identifying with the criminals rather than the police, the "law and order" orientation of the authors is almost unrelenting. More disturbing is the genre's decidedly unhealthy emphasis on the lurid details of horrific crimes against women. While I can appreciate that the occasional female reader may gain a sense of psychological mastery of her fear of such violence, it troubles me to know that most of the readers are male and that most of them are getting a thrill by reading detailed depictions of brutality towards women. Overall, I think such books contribute to the social atmosphere which tolerates violence against women and I wish Aunt Agatha's wouldn't recycle them.

With that exception, l've been delighted by both the books and the atmosphere at Aunt Agatha's. The store exemplifies much of what is best about independent specialty bookshops. Whenever I want a book they might carry, I go there first, not only because it's a fun shop and I might save some money by buying a used copy, but also because it feels like the right thing to do. Jamie and Robin, like most proprietors of small bookstores, certainly aim to make a living (they hope to break even this year) but just as certainly don't expect to get rich. They are in it for love as well as for money, and it shows. When Jamie has set aside a book he thinks l'd like, I can tell that his pleasure in matching person to book outshines his satisfaction a making a sale. When Robin strikes up a casual conversation, it's clearly more out a natural "neighborliness" than a calculated attempt to cultívate a customer. So, I figure, better for my money to go to them than to some big corporation, the stockholders of which might, for all I know, be passing their share of the profits along to Jesse Helms.

So, if, like me, you already enjoy books you can "play along" with by trying to solve the mystery before the protagonist figures it out, or if you're bored with your usual "entertainment" reading and are looking for a change of pace, then pay a visit to Jamie and Robin at Aunt Agatha's. Strike up a conversation - you never know where it'II lead you...