Wendy Werris

I'd never heard of Wendy Werris, but this woman writes like someone who's been doing it all her life. It must be all those books she's read, a kind of osmosis. Her life-long love affair with books is so obvious that I immediately recognized a kindred spirit. But this is not JUST about books; it is a finely nuanced and moving memoir of the first order. Werris's descriptions of her unorthodox Jewish home life, her father's show business connections and success - followed by a long slide into show more oblivion - are all so perfectly rendered you can feel the joys and sorrows. And she doesn't shrink from the more painful times either - her personal battles with drugs and alcohol, her brutal rape by a stranger, the long slow declines and deaths of her parents, and the sad dehumanizing changes in the book business which she bears witness to over more than thirty years. In her on-line blog, Ms. Werris notes she's currently working on a bio of her dad, Snag Werris, once a chief writer for Jackie Gleason. Write on, Wendy. I'll read it. show less

A good start and a great finish, but lagged a bit in the middle. You have to be very interested in hearing about people in the book business that you've never heard of to enjoy all of this book, but it is overall a good read. It seems to be an honest memoir, and perhaps that naturally leads to some low points.

You'll hear comparisons to "84 Charing Cross Road", but Hanff was a book reader/lover and that makes a big difference. Werris is a book lover, but this memoir is really about loving show more bookselling/promoting, and it just doesn't have the natural warmth that Charing Cross Road has.

Os. show less

A rich and engaging memoir: What sort of book could be more appealing to readers of a book review website than one that chronicles a life spent in and around the book business? Wendy Werris's captivating memoir of more than 30 years in varied aspects of that business is sure to please book lovers everywhere.

Werris began her career at the age of 20 in 1970 as a bookseller at the Pickwick Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard. The last chapter recounts the 2004 reunion of her former co-workers show more that attests eloquently to the power of books to unite people. From there, she moved through a series of bookstore jobs before landing a marketing position with Straight Arrow Books, the bookselling division of Rolling Stone magazine. That job ended disastrously, but it eventually led to her first job as a publisher's representative, a position she would hold in various forms for almost 30 years, representing 70 publishers both well-known and obscure.

Werris doesn't shrink from describing the dramatic changes she has witnessed in the bookselling business, most prominently the demise of independent bookstores and the rise of the chains. The numbers are stark: two-thirds of the bookstores she served in Southern California and Arizona between 1985 and 2005 no longer exist. Still, she's rueful but not sentimental in assessing that changing landscape. "The business will never again be what it once was," she writes. "It's not possible to find the cultivated sensibility of the past in most publishers and bookstores today, because economic realities no longer allow for it."

The subtitle of this memoir is a bit misleading: Readers who think "living it up" refers to wild parties with famous authors are in for a surprise. Werris doesn't gloss over the pain of lonely nights in cookie cutter hotel rooms or the drudgery of waking up the next morning with the job of persuading skeptical bookstore buyers to purchase the debut novel of an unknown author or the latest self-help book. The need for a successful traveling salesperson to "wear aloneness as a cloak of honor" will resonate with anyone who has traveled the road selling.

Unlike many memoirists, Werris is no casual namedropper, but the account of a dinner spent with Eric Idle (of Monty Python fame), George Harrison and Tom Petty is guaranteed to bring a smile to the reader's face. Her encounters with famous authors like Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut and Jonathan Franzen are offered in a refreshingly straightforward style.

Interwoven with Werris's stories of the ups and downs of her working life are frank but loving reminiscences of her parents. Her father, Snag, was a former vaudevillian who fashioned a highly successful career as a comedy writer for such well-known names as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and, most prominently, Jackie Gleason. Werris's mother, Charlotte, was a free spirit whose favorite dishes included jellied pigs' feet and calves' brains. She writes poignantly of her parents' economic and emotional decline after her father's comedy writing career passed its peak.

Perhaps the most compelling chapter of the book takes the reader, at least superficially, on a tangent that veers from Werris's relatively straightforward account of her bookselling career. In 1981, she was raped in her Los Angeles apartment. In riveting detail, she describes her struggle to come to terms with the enormity of the crime. Her search ultimately leads her to a book about cold cases written by crime novelist Michael Connelly. Through him she meets several compassionate police officers who guide her to acceptance of the fact that her assailant will never be held accountable for his crime. "We never know what may happen when we pick up a book to read," she observes. "The turning of a page might actually change the course of our existence. There is something miraculous about this. Truth strikes at the very heart of books and the readers who turn themselves over with great trust to finding the essence of themselves."

Wendy Werris's life has had more than its share of sadness, but in AN ALPHABETICAL LIFE she makes it clear that it's been a rich and well-lived one. In this memoir she reveals herself as an engaging companion anyone would enjoy spending an evening with over a hearty meal and a bottle of fine wine. For those of us who won't be able to do that anytime soon, this book is a satisfying substitute.

--- Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg [...] show less

I'm a big sucker for books about bookstores. Or books about books in general. Needless to say, when I stumbled across Werris's memoir on sale, I snatched it up immediately. Werris begins her narrative by introducing her readers to the world of Pickwick Books, where her long career in the book business so humbly began at the tender age of 19.

Werris's father, Snag Werris, was a writer for the Jackie Gleason Show and between his famous friends and Werris's job in Hollywood, quite a bit of show more name-dropping goes on in the book which initally irked me. However, it was interesting to read about the book buying habits of Alfred Hitchcock, Mick Jagger and Joni Mitchell. In time, Werris becomes a publisher's rep in a time where few women held such a position. In 1976, she was one of two women book reppers in the country. She was something of a trailblazer in the field and often faced frustration as independent bookstores closed in the face of chain megastores.

Recommended for anyone who loves books about books, as well as lovers of autobiographies and women's studies. show less