The Book Barn

Whitlock’s Book Barn in Bethany, Connecticut is a secondhand bookstore. It consists of two small barn-red barns, one low and sway-roofed, the other two-storied and equally rickety, between the woods and a horse field. Inside, old wide-planked wood floors are spongy with rot, and in the lower barn, missing floorboards are covered by remnants of oriental rugs. In both barns, the atmosphere is thick with mildew and booklice.

I started coming to the Book Barn when I was a kid and it was owned by curmudgeons. Founder Gil Whitlock, along with brothers Clifford and Reverdy, ran a popular bookstore in New Haven, and the Book Barn was an offshoot.  All the books that didn’t sell in the city were put out to pasture at the Book Barn. Gil and his brothers are gone, but a spunky woman named Meg now manages operations.

Years ago, we lived on the same rural road as the Book Barn. I’d walk down with Hannah and Jake, pushing Rachael, Sarah, and Eliza in their stroller. I would let everyone choose books for a dime or quarter, and Gil or Hope, his wife, would offer them ossified gumdrops from the dusty dish next to the cash register.

When I went back to the Book Barn last weekend, I bought four Little Golden Books I remembered from my own childhood, or maybe my children’s childhood. In my hands, they felt known, sweet familiar bends in a road I was about to take for the millionth time. When Meg checked me out, and I noticed the candy dish was gone but the effects of time and gravity were everywhere. The Book Barn is indeed falling down, but in such sweet slow motion that I found myself daring to imagine my grandchildren here, discovering what will become their favorite book.