The enduring triumph of Stuart Gersen

We buried one of the pillars of Portland’s arts and cultural community in Evergreen Cemetery this week.

Stuart Gersen wasn’t a painter or a photographer or a sculptor. He couldn’t sing, though I learned at his memorial service on Tuesday that this lanky Long Island hipster in Buddy Holly glasses could dance surprisingly well back in the day. He certainly couldn’t act — Stuart’s face always mirrored his true emotions (annoyance and exasperation being the most common, but also genuine joy and gratitude), and if he possessed the skill to couch his thoughts and opinions in words crafted to please his audience, he never used that skill in my presence.

If Stuart ever wrote a book, his family hasn’t found it yet, but books and periodicals constitute the enormous contribution he made to our community, a gift he continues to give through the small business he co-founded and operated in the heart of Maine’s largest city: Longfellow Books.

After a few years of bohemian wandering (cross-country road trips, penniless adventures in Europe), Stuart made his way to Maine among the disparate hippies who settled here in the early ’70s. The back-to-the-land movement, however, was not his bag. While living in New Sharon in the mid-’70s, Stuart found his calling when he landed a job at the Bookland shop in Farmington.

Bookland grew to include over a dozen locations in Maine and New Hampshire, but faltered and filed for bankruptcy at the turn of the century, partly due to competition from national chains like Borders, but also as a result of bad bookkeeping. (In 2003, a jury found that the Portland accounting firm Baker Newman & Noyes was negligent in its oversight of Bookland’s finances, and awarded the then-defunct business nearly $6.7 million.)

These circumstances would have compelled a less passionate man to throw in the towel: find another line of work or put on a nametag and join the corporate book business. But Stuart was made of much stronger, more stubborn stuff. Together with fellow Bookland employee Chris Bowe, Stuart established Longfellow Books in Monument Square in 2001.

Stuart Gersen, upon Longfellow Books winning the Soul of Portland award at a Buy Local event in 2011.

Stuart Gersen, upon Longfellow Books winning the Soul of Portland award at a Buy Local event in 2011.

Longfellow Books outlasted Borders and has survived while hundreds of other small, independently owned bookstores across the country have fallen before the onslaught of big-box competitors, Amazon, and “e-readers” (Kindle, NOOK, apps, etc.). The store’s success is due in large part to the hard work Stuart, Bowe and their employees put in almost every day for the past decade and a half. Although the shop is tiny compared to its corporate competitors, its commitment to its customers and community is huge.

The book you want may not be on the shelf the day you stop in, but the staff will gladly order it and call you a day or two later when it arrives. Looking for books by Maine authors? Longfellow Books is peerless in its promotion of local writers and their work, having hosted hundreds of readings and other events over the years. Not sure what you’re looking for? Just ask for suggestions. The store’s employees are exceedingly knowledgeable and willing to offer their honest opinion. Stuart, a college dropout, possessed an encyclopedic memory of authors and titles in seemingly every genre, and as I said, he was not shy about telling you exactly what he thought of them.

Besides being a customer, I also knew Stuart through the Portland Buy Local campaign (he and I were among the founding members of that organization) and as an advertiser in my publication, The Bollard. Cantankerous, impatient and notoriously tech-phobic, Stuart was not the easiest person to work with on Buy Local’s board, but his contrariness kept us true to our values on more than a few occasions, and his store has been a hub for many of the organization’s activities, to which Stuart dedicated hundreds of hours this harried small-businessman could ill afford to spend on non-profit pursuits.

Walking into the shop to sell Stuart an ad each month, I often thought I’d rather face a firing squad. But if he had a minute to spare, he gave it to me, and he never missed an issue. “Are these ads bringing me more customers?” Stuart once asked me, then answered his own question: “I don’t know. Probably not. But I like you and I want to support what you’re doing.” Backhanded compliment or not, I can’t recall it today with dry eyes.

Independent bookstores are an invaluable artistic, cultural and intellectual asset for any city. Stuart shouldered the burden of providing that asset to Portland through all sorts of financial and personal hardships, cancer being the last. He fought to the end, and every day his shop is open is proof that he’s still winning.

Chris Busby

About Chris Busby

Chris Busby is editor and publisher of The Bollard, a monthly magazine about Portland. He writes a weekly column for the BDN.