We love audiobooks here at Skylark, and are proud to partner with our friends at Libro.fm to offer them to our customers. (If you haven’t seen our new Skylark/Libro bookmarks, come in and pick one up!)
Until October 30, Libro are offering members a fantastic two-for-the-price-of-one sale on some amazing selected titles. Just click here to see the details, and fill your boots! (Or ears.)
Back in early March of this year, I opened my email to find an invitation to serve on the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence selection committee. Established in 2012, these awards recognize excellence for both a fiction and nonfiction adult title published in the US the previous year. It explained both the work and joy involved of being one of seven committee members, and that I had come highly recommended to be the bookselling expert on the committee. The praise of this opportunity reached through time to my joking in childhood that “I want a job where I can read all the time and be told I’m good at it.” It was an easy yes for my RSVP. The committee would work with an award coordinator to pour through books published in 2024, conversing and narrowing down first to a long list, then a shortlist, and finally two winners to be announced in January. Speaking to a previous participant and friend, she said I should prepare myself for both the time commitment and the space required to store and sort a significant number of books. Let’s just say it is a good thing my eldest is away at college.
Dedicating the majority of my 2024 reading to committee selections has been quite an adventure. I have loved every moment, even if my eyes, ears, and brain are extra-extra tired. When I say we read a lot of books, I mean we read A LOT of books. I admit that my normal reading pace is pretty swift, and this load pushed me to my limits. It was not unusual for me to pack in a book before heading in to work, another couple in the evening after, and follow up with a stack on the weekend.
It was a different sort of reading, sure. I wasn’t able to retain as well as normal. A new metric in my “will I recommend this book” meter is “do I remember it?” I learned to quickly discard what I didn’t need more effectively even than my days of cramming scientific formulas for exams.
And the books that stuck, stuck. They are pretty special. There are, of course, some favorites that didn’t make the longlist for various reasons. I look forward to finding different ways to share those titles with those of you I know will enjoy them. But for now, I’d love to celebrate the longlist for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction.
Talking throughout 2024 with this magical committee has been a year of delights. As the lone bookseller on the cozy crew, I had so much to learn from these ridiculously brilliant readers. Through their vastly different and specific experiences, I was able to take in new information with every conversation. In particular, I needed their knowledge about previous works on history. More than once I thought something had a completely new insight, and learned that it had been done before. Similarly, we were able to discuss the literary quality mixed with the approachability for novels. We all serve different communities and readers, and knowing them well is something that helped guide our insights.
I know we will be thinking of one another for a long time to come, wishing we had a scheduled chat ready to go to share our thoughts and listen to unique insights. With this many conversations about this many books, we have a pretty good shorthand and a pretty good idea of which of us will love which books. What was even more amazing was how often we were on the exact same page. And even when we agreed, listening to why we agreed added new insights to my own reading experience.
You have to wait a bit longer for the shortlist (11/12/24). And even longer for the announcement of the winners (1/26/25). For now, take a browse through 23 amazing Fiction titles and 23 amazing Non Fiction titles. Find me at the shop if you want to talk about any of them further! And if you want to read the official ALA announcement with more information about the experience and the individuals on the committee, I encourage you to read this release.
Because Books, y’all.
Hello Waldo-finders!
We had a lot of fun in July with this year’s Find Waldo hunt! Our thanks to everyone who went hunting and to the local businesses who participated.
To celebrate, we are hosting a party for everyone who participated in the hunt on August 18th at 5 pm at Skylark Bookshop, and we hope to see you there! If you turn in a passport with 20 stamps/signatures at the party, you will be entered into a prize drawing including Waldo goodies and some spectacular treasures from several of the participating businesses. If you find all 25 and are able to find his medal so he can set up the big party, you will receive an extra goodie at the party to celebrate your extraordinary sleuthing skills. You must attend the party to receive any prizes from the prize drawing!
We hope to see you there!
Little known fact: Mother’s Day in the UK is a few weeks before Mother’s Day here. (I know this because every year one of my sisters emails to remind me about it the Friday before, by which point, of course, it is far too late to do anything other than hang my head in apology when I call. My mum, bless her, is quite used to this by now. I’ve lived in the States for 21 years now, and pretty sure that I have never missed missing a UK Mother’s Day.)
Anyway, I digress. The good news is that there need be no such shame-faced phone calls for you, my fine Skylark friends! We are standing by, ready to dispatch perfect book-related gifts to your mothers/grandmothers/stepmothers/fairy godmothers/mothers-in-law (at short notice, if necessary) to spread happiness and spare the blushes of those of you who like to, er, leave things to the last minute.
With that in mind, may we propose…
A Skylark book subscription. Each month we’ll choose a book, giftwrap it, and send it to the Mom In Question. You choose how many, hardcover/paperback, etc., and we take care of everything else. It is, as the saying goes, the gift that keeps on giving. More details here.
The Skylark book spa. Ah, yes. The MIQ deserves a little pampering, no? What could be better than a one-on-one consultation with one of staff, accompanied by book picks made especially with her and her interests in mind? Plus, you know, $100 to spend. And a Skylark mug. And some chocolate. If that all doesn’t sound enough, we are now offering upgrades, too. Check out your options here.
The small-but-mighty Skylark gift certificate. The wonderful thing about these is that they represent guilt-free shopping. Which is, of course, the very best kind of shopping that there is. You can get ‘em here.
A Libro.fm subscription. Does the MIQ like to listen to audiobooks? Our friends at Libro.fm offer various wonderful gift packages which allow readers to choose from hundreds of thousands of books - and by shopping with them, you get to help a local independent bookstore rather than certain other online audiobook providers owned by people who these days are more interested in sending rocketships into space. Find out more here. (About audiobooks, not rocketships.)
However you choose to celebrate the mothers in your life, we hope you all have a wonderful day on Sunday. (And if you see my mother, please tell her I’m sorry. Again.)
For weeks our favorite titles have faced off in literary combat to become the "2024 Skylark Madness of March Book of the 2024 Skylark Madness of March" (the final championship name is a still a work in progress). And now is the time for us all to realize a deeply important thing: That Matthew is bad at math so the finals will technically end in April.The good news? That means we have two more weeks of voting (and two more weeks of you possibly getting cool free stuff from us at the end of the bracket!)
And there is more! In addition to the book battle to end all book battles a secret war has been waged. As you may know, each of our books were chosen by our staff, so, in addition to finding out the "2024 Skylark Madness of March Book of the 2024 Skylark Madness of March" we will soon know which staff chose the winning book. Or as I like to call the winner "The 2024 Skylark Madness of March Book of the 2024 Skylark Madness of March Book Selector Award". And the competition for the 2024.S.M.M.B.2024.S.M.M.B.S. Award has been DEADLY brutal really friendly and relaxed.
Sadly, in order not to sway votes we can't reveal who has chosen which book (to the Matthew super fans out there, worry not; his books are no longer in the running.) Without further ado (except this little bit of extra ado right here) the four final books in the bracket boil down to these two matches:To Shape a Dragons Breath Vs The Picture of Dorian GrayA Deadly Education Vs Howl's Moving Castle.
Things are hotting up!
In this week’s round of voting, we had two ties, which we understand is something that also happens in real sportsball. Educated Vs. Dorian Gray was solved with a coin flip, and Love, Theoretically beat out And Then There Were None after a gracious concession by the latter's selector. Three more matches came down to a single vote. The big winners were Happy Place clipping Fourth Wing 12 - 4, Howl's Moving Castle silencing The Silent Patient 12-5, and To Shape a Dragon's Breath leaving Know My Name forgotten 11-6.
Come in this week and cast your vote for the books which remain - and see if we can continue to find more bad puns for our weekly round-up!
Week two is upon us! There were lots of fierce competitions with lots of close calls, but a couple HUGE winners. Howl's Moving Castle crushed Mrs. Planksy getting a whopping 15 times more votes! (It's less impressive If I give the actual numbers, so feel free to imagine 15000 to 1000). Dorian Gray had the same incredible margin while martyring Martyr!. The Silent Patient overcame an early lead by home team The Paris Hours to win by a single vote! The rest of the match ups were all decently close in votes, but no less historic! Who will breach into the final four? Who will have a shot at reigning supreme above all other books (well….all other books arbitrarily selected by our booksellers)? The answer is simple:
WE. DON’T. KNOW.
But you do, because it will be what you vote for. So, come in to the shop and do that. Please and Thank You!
To say that we at Skylark are basketball fans is a bit of an understatement…
To say that we at Skylark are basketball fans is a bit of an overstatement…
Basketball is a thing we have heard about. And with all the talk of brackets and competition, we thought it would be fun to get in on all the excitement. That is why this year we are starting our own book bracket with its own legally distinct and absolutely 100% non trademark infringing name: Skylark Bookshop and the Madness of March!
Our amazingly talented booksellers have chosen several of their top recommendations and we added a couple of the shop's top sellers to the mix to wind up with a bracket (above) full of all sorts of wonderful titles. Every week for the next four weeks, You (literally you, the person reading this) can come into the shop and help these titles fight to the death to become the Skylark Madness of March 2024 champion! Aside from bragging rights, every week when you vote you get more opportunities to win Skylark goodies!
As an added bonus, whichever bookseller’s book wins, or gets the furthest if a wildcard wins, becomes the Madness of March 2024 Bookseller Champion! We aren’t fully sure what that means yet, but we will probably embarrass them and make them give a victory speech via social media or something like that.
To briefly recap:
We have at least heard of a sport.
We have a non-trademark infringing bracket. (Alex is a lawyer and he says it’s 100% legit)
You could get free stuff.
Over the past couple of months, the Skylark staff has been working together to compose a Mission Statement and a Statement of Values that reflect the things we most cherish in our roles as both booksellers and members of this community. We’re proud to share this with you.
OUR MISSION
Skylark is a fiercely Independent Bookshop. We strive to always find new ways to celebrate literature and our community. Some books give us knowledge and perspective; others simply give necessary space to breathe. Putting the right book into the right hands is a deeply meaningful act. We believe that we can find that book for everyone who walks through our doors. We embrace enjoyment, entertainment, and the beauty of Skylark Bookshop.
OUR VALUES
Because Care.
We believe in creating a space where customers and our staff feel safe, prioritized, and valued .People matter and we aim to show kindness and respect to all of our customers. Our personalized service is rooted in a skilled, receptive, and proactive staff with varied backgrounds and talents. We feel that our care for others is reflected in how our community cares for us.
Because Community.
We believe in our responsibilities as a local business and are committed to serving our community. We do this by providing jobs, paying taxes, and investing back into Columbia with donations, actions, and partnerships. We strive to create a valued third space, a hub for discussion and those seeking knowledge as well as a thriving venue for joy, calm, and kindness.
Because Curation.
We believe that our staff is better than any online algorithm. We invest time, thought, and energy into carefully curating our titles. We aim to create a constantly evolving inventory that is unique to us, our customers, and our community.
Because Curiosity.
We believe that books encourage discussion and dialog of important ideas and that providing a variety of dynamic events invites this engagement. Curiosity is the foundation for personal and societal growth.
Because Continued Growth and Learning.
We believe in our own continued growth and learning as much as we believe in providing a space for yours.
Because Constitutionality.
We believe in the freedom of speech, expression, and reading freely.
Because Columbia.
We believe in active inclusivity. We celebrate the extraordinary representation of Columbia’s diversity. We believe in providing space to give voice to those who are historically unheard. We believe that contemplating the voices of those outside our community, both near and far, enriches us all.
Because Books.
School is back in session, so we thought that we would give you some extra homework with the first-ever Skylark Back To School BINGO to encourage reading for enjoyment during the school year. The rules are pretty simple: pick up a Bingo sheet at Skylark, or print off the picture attached here. Turn in your Bingo card by November 30 to receive your prize book (subject to availability) and be entered to win a $50 dollar Skylark Gift card! Each Bingo on your card equals one entry and if you get blackout BINGO (All of the spaces filled) you will get an extra three entries into the raffle. Please note, while we would love for you to get your books through us, that is not mandatory for you to participate.
Of course, if you need any recommendations to help fill any of the categories, make sure to stop by and ask any of our booksellers! And posting on social media is ALWAYS encouraged using #SkylarkBingo. We want to follow along with your progress!
Today we write to our supportive Skylark Bookshop community with a heartfelt request to help one of our special book partners, the Slater School District library.
Slater School District is a very small Title 1 district located in Slater, MO, about 60 miles northwest of Columbia. Quite soon after Skylark opened its doors five years ago, Slater librarian Angela Pointer reached out to ask about purchasing books in bulk through us. We happily began working with Angela. Over the years, Angela has ordered new, gorgeous, diverse books from Skylark for her students, and we love seeing her drop into the shop regularly.
Unfortunately, the Slater School library recently has suffered a great blow with water damage. Angela shares the following details:
At the beginning of the school year, I had noticed that a couple of the books students had chosen for check out felt as if they had been wet and smelled a bit musty. I didn't really think anything about it until I noticed a large water stain on the ceiling tiles in the corner of the library above one of the bookcases. When I walked over to check it out, I noticed that one of the bins I use for forward facing browsing was full of dark colored water. It was then that I realized we had experienced a major leak and all of the books on that set of shelves had been or were still sitting in water and molded. I had to record all of those books as deleted due to water damage.
I have been working on collecting holiday books from various cultures and religions around the world in an attempt to expand the experiences of our students and all of those were lost as well as all of our Halloween, Easter, Thanksgiving, Groundhog's Day, Valentine's Day, and St. Patrick's Day books. With a limited budget, it is hard to replace books when you are trying to continue building a collection with new titles. Any support from the book loving community would be greatly appreciated by our students and school community.
This is where we hope our beautiful Skylark community comes in. We dearly want to help Angela rebuild the Slater library, so with her permission and agreement from her administration, we are sending out a call for you to purchase books to replenish the Slater School library.
Here is part of Angela's wish list (if things really take off, we've got additional titles to add). For every ten books that are purchased, Skylark will contribute an additional book.
Let's rally to get books into the hands of these Slater students! Here’s that link one more time!
Nestling Storytime is about to hit the road! Our in-house storytime for kids will now happen on the first Saturday of each month at 11:00 a.m. BUT we will also be popping up in all sorts of places outside of the store, sharing our joy of picture books with friends all over Columbia. Check our events page for details!
If you have a group interested in a visit, please email us and our staff will be in touch to finalize details!
Hard though it is to believe, Skylark opened its doors for the very first time on Saturday, August 25, 2018 - which means that this year we get to celebrate our FIFTH BIRTHDAY. It’s been a fabulous five years, and we’re grateful for every day of it, and every one of you. (Although, given the choice, we probably would have rather not have had to deal with a global pandemic. Call us picky.)
ANYWAY. As usual, we’ll be throwing our own birthday party on the Saturday nearest the day itself - which, this year, is Saturday August 26. We are celebrating ALL DAY and in lots of different ways, as usual:
As our way of saying thank you, everyone who buys a book on Saturday gets to choose an additional book from our towering stacks of gift books (see tine sample above.) No peeking! It will be a lovely surprise for when you get home. While stocks last - but folks, we’ve been wrapping these babies for MONTHS. There are a TON of ‘em.
As is now traditional, we will have a raffle with a humungous bag of goodies - everyone who makes a purchase on Saturday will be entered.
Aa is also traditional, we will be revealing this year’s new Skylark t-shirt. We love it - it’s very on-brand - and we hope you will, too. They will be available for purchase on the day. We’ll also be introducing two more new items of merchandise - a Skylark tank top and a Skylark water bottle. I know. Remaining stocks of our 2020, 2021, and 2022 t-shirts will be available at a discount on the day as well.
If all that wasn’t enough, as a birthday treat our friends across the road at Sparky’s have created a one-off themed ice cream flavor. We’re not sure exactly what’s in it, except for one ingredient: NUTELLA. (If you know, you know.)
Finally, we’re going to repeat a modified version of fun thing we did when we celebrated our second birthday in the midst of COVID restrictions. Remember Secret Skylark? It’s a way of sharing your very favorite book with a strangers and getting someone else’s favorite back in return. Here’s how it works. Buy a copy of your favorite book from us (fiction, nonfiction, whatever) and add it to the Skylark book nest, perhaps with a little note about why you love it. You will then receive another book back - one that someone else has donated. And because it’s our birthday, we’ll throw in a free signed hardcover of The Paris Hours for the first 20 people who play. So you’ll get two books for the price of one.
We’re still busy planning other things to surprise and delight you on the day, which - if we remember - we’ll include on an updated post. But swing by and come help us celebrate!
Love is in the air!
Anyone who has been into the shop in recent months will know that we love us some good romance. Our “comfort food” section is packed tighter than a duchess’s heaving bodice. So we’re VERY excited that Saturday, August 19 is Bookstore Romance Day! We’re looking forward to celebrating all things romance with you! Bookstores across the country will be celebrating with us!
Too often the romance genre is looked down upon or dismissed as not “real” reading (whatever that means). This is, of course, very silly. We at Skylark (all being hopeless romantics ourselves) believe that Romance - with a capital R - is for everyone! There will be lots of fun things going on throughout the day, including:
Photo/selfie opportunities
Favorite Trope contest - the winning trope gets a Skylark staff curated list of book suggestions that fall under the category
Raffle - all you need to do to be entered in is buy a romance book through Skylark on August 19
You can also expect other fun surprises throughout the day, and (if we know anything about anything) some specially curated music which captures the spirit of the day.
NB: if two single people both come to Skylark on Bookstore Romance Day, meet, and fall in love, WE ALL WANT TO COME TO THE WEDDING. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.
We are often told - and we love to hear! - how beautiful visitors find the shop. There’s a lot to enjoy - the lofty ceilings, the bright airy feel, the laughter and conversations, variations of musical adventures (depending on who is in charge of the playlist), and, of course, all the lovely books.
That said, sometimes our favorite moments in the shop are when we’re alone, when the lights are minimal, everything is quiet, and we don't have to talk to anyone. So we would like to extend that experience to all of you - whether you have sensory needs, preferences, or just want a softer space to enjoy. We are designating the first hour of the last Sunday of every month to this goal, and we’re calling it Low Sensory Sundays. The lights will be low. The music will be off. Chatter will be as minimal as possible. We won't come to you, you can come to us if you need assistance. We ask that customers also meet these goals to the best of their ability. Disability Awareness Month seems the perfect time to kick this off.
We look forward to gently enjoying the morning with you this Sunday!
In her new book, Our Strangers, Lydia Davis delivers another delicious collection of exquisite short fiction. One of the most renowned and accomplished writers presently working, her stories are deft, inventive, and endlessly artful - ranging in topics from tiny insects to marriage. The book comes out in October, and we can’t wait.
But here’s the interesting thing about this lovely book. Like so many of us, Lydia Davis has beaming increasingly appalled by the business practices of (as we call it in the shop) the Evil River. She writes: Many years ago, my eyes were opened to Amazon's unsavory business practices--its poor treatment of employees, its stranglehold on competition, its destruction of small businesses, its violation of the very notion of community. I have not bought books or anything else through Amazon since then. So it seemed completely unreasonable that I was still allowing them to sell my own books, and I vowed that with my next one I would end that.
To which we say: Amen.
Of course, things were not as simple as they might sound. Lydia’s agent tried to place the book with conventional publishers, but they were all unwilling or unable to promise it would not be sold on Amazon, due to the logistics of book distribution systems and Amazon’s retaliatory nature. (For more on the terribleness of Amazon, we recommend Danny Caine’s brilliant How To Resist Amazon and Why.)
Nevertheless, she persisted. Lydia found a willing partner in bookshop.org, who have committed to publishing the book and to making sure that Amazon gets no share of any profits arising from its sales. The book will be available exclusively through independent bookstores, libraries, and bookshop.org.
All of which seemed worth celebrating. So please consider pre-ordering a copy of Our Strangers from us, or any other independent bookshop. We’ll give the last word to Lydia: I am delighted that ... Our Strangers will be able to avoid the grasp of the marketplace bully and sell my book in the time-honored way--through independent bookstores that value community and engage in a humane, respectful conversation with readers.
A while back we may have mentioned that we were in possession of one of the extremely limited special edition of Paul McCartney’s beautiful book of photography, 1964: Eyes of the Storm. Only 175 of these babies were printed, and each one is individually numbered and signed by the great man.
It is kind of a big deal.
After the interest that was generated when we sold our signed copy of McCartney’s Lyrics last year, we realized that we had an opportunity to raise some money for a good cause this time around. So if you would like to get your hands on this (literally) unique collector’s item, here is what are proposing.
We are going to hold an online auction for this item. What does that mean? It means people will be able to email us their bids any time up until 9:00 p.m. CST on Monday, July 24. The highest bid at that time will. (More details below.) Here’s the thing, though. Once we have cleared what we need to pay for the original book and cover our expenses, we will apply every single dollar over and above that amount to purchase books for the library that our friends at the Center Project are building for the LGBTQIA+ community that they serve with such dedication and passion.
We want to make this as fair and as transparent as possible, so here are the rules:
All bids must be made by email to mail@skylarkbookshop.com. Bids submitted any other way will NOT be considered or accepted.
We will do our best to keep the website updated here with the highest current bid - at least daily, hopefully more frequently. But, you know, we’re busy people, so you may have to be patient with us.
On which subject: PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE SHOP.
You can make as many bids as you like.
Bidding will end at 9:00 p.m. CST on Monday, July 24. ON THE DOT.
Missouri sales tax will be payable if the auction winner is a Missouri resident.
The winning bid will not include shipping. We will contact the winner and agree the best way of shipping the book at that point - there will be an additional charge for this.
Good luck!
We are excited to welcome Waldo back to Columbia for a second year!
Waldo is visiting to help us run our Find Waldo Local event this July! In fact, 25 Waldos will be hiding in local businesses in Columbia. The question for you is, can you find them all?
Skylark Bookshop is your Find Waldo Headquarters all July, so drop by and pick up a passport from us (they are also present at other participating locations) or print your own here! Participating businesses can be identified by a SHOP LOCAL, FIND WALDO HERE Decal on business doors/windows, and are also listed with addresses in the passport.
And Waldo didn’t just bring himself to Columbia . . . He brought gifts! The first 125 people to find at least 10 Waldos can claim a temporary tattoo and a $1 off coupon good for Waldo titles at Skylark Bookshop.
We are also hosting a party for Waldo at 6:30 on Thursday, August 3rd. If you turn in a passport with 20 stamps/signatures at the party, you will be entered into a prize drawing including Waldo goodies and some spectacular treasures from several of the participating businesses. If you find all 25 and are able to find his missing glasses so he can set up the big party, you will receive an extra goodie at the party to celebrate your extraordinary sleuthing skills.
All are welcome to participate in this event - adults, kids, and everyone in between. Spend a fun filled day of adventure, or spread the search through the whole month while you visit Waldo at these fantastic local businesses. Done with summer reading and looking for some fun? This might be what you’re looking for! Just want to get out and about? You are welcome to join us!
The hunt for Waldo is on!
This year Beth was invited to join an exclusive panel of independent booksellers who are tasked with selecting the very best debut books of the year - these titles become part of the American Booksellers Association Indies Introduce campaign. It involves a huge amount of reading and discussion - and the panelists each get to interview one of the winners. Here Beth talks to novelist John Milas about The Militia House, which will be published by Henry Holt in July.
John Milas is the author of The Militia House, a Summer/Fall 2023 Indies Introduce selection.
Milas enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age 19 and subsequently deployed to the Helmand Province of Afghanistan in support of OEF 10.1. He was honorably discharged from active service in 2012. After his discharge, he earned both his BA and MFA in creative writing. As a student, he studied with writers such as Marianne Boruch, Roxane Gay, Brian Leung, Robert Lopez, Terese Marie Mailhot, Julie Price Pinkerton, Donald Platt, Sharon Solwitz, and others.
He enjoys engaging with his local literary community by attending readings, hosting workshops at his hometown library, and judging creative writing contests, which he has done since 2015. He has also read submissions for literary magazines such as Sycamore Review and Ninth Letter and has completed various freelance assignments as a journalist and editor. He grew up in Illinois, where he currently reads, writes, and watches baseball.
Beth Shapiro of Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri, served on the panel that selected Milas’ debut for Indies Introduce. Of the experience, Shapiro said, “Let me put it out there: I don’t typically read war or horror books. But what Afghanistan veteran John Milas has accomplished by combining the two genres is chilling, enlightening, and so very sad. An amazing insight into the deployment experience as well as PTSD that has stuck with me.”
Here, Milas and Shapiro discuss the making of The Militia House.
Beth Shapiro: To be honest, I'm not a reader of either military or horror writing, but this book grabbed me so completely. What factors do you believe make your book special in that it possesses this wider appeal?
John Milas: In Afghanistan, I felt that both internal and external reality were being redefined daily not in a wholly dissimilar way to the set of expectations — or lack thereof — established chapter-by-chapter in a gothic horror novel. Maybe in getting to the root of this parallel there’s something appealing to readers who would normally not exclusively read a haunted house book or a book about war. It’s like mixing individual ingredients in a recipe to create a singular, unique flavor. Additionally, I wanted the voice of the book to feel plain-spoken and accessible beyond the jargon, as if a common person was talking to the reader. I hope that helps the reader feel invited.
BS: You were deployed to Afghanistan in 2010. How much of Loyette's story derives from your personal and direct experience there? More broadly, how does the story reflect the US presence in Afghanistan and its pull-out?
JM: In terms of my experience, I was not yet a corporal when I deployed, so the narrator’s subject position is largely fictional. I was in the position of characters like Blount or Vargas. My peers and I often didn’t know what was going on in a detailed sense, but many of the details in The Militia House, such as the setting and the mission at hand, are inspired by what I saw at the time rather than research I’ve done since. More specifically, the FOB [Forward Operating Base] where the story takes place and the Militia House itself are both real. We went inside as they do in the book, but in real life nothing strange happened. If my book reflects on the US presence and abrupt exit from Afghanistan in a broad sense, it’s really holding a magnifying glass up to an earlier point in the domino rally. My book does not directly explain the chaos that unfolded in Kabul in 2021, but it’s not completely unrelated to the big picture.
BS: Without revealing any spoilers, I found the ending of The Militia House incredibly moving and suggestive of a glimmer of hope. Was this always your planned ending, and how does this ending comment on PTSD?
JM: Narratives told in the western tradition of storytelling ask two questions with their endings: Did the protagonist get what they wanted? How will that affect them? The ending of this book when it was my grad school thesis did not ask those questions, which shuts out the reader and renders the experience trivial if you’re working in a narrative tradition reliant on causality. The ending is much more character focused now rather than thematically focused, and the specific focus on a character who thinks about the choices he has made and the choices he can still make is a moment that can reflect on us as individuals in many ways, but also on the institutions that get us into wars if you want to see it the way I do. The ending now asks about the possibilities that new choices can lead us to, which is hopeful. There’s nothing resonant in an ending that closes the door to future possibility. If my ending comments on PTSD, it’s to say: PTSD does not have to be the end.
BS: Did you plan on this book being a horror novel initially, or did that decision evolve? What works influenced your writing of this book?
JM: The Militia House was always meant to be scary. I originally wrote it as a short story for my first fiction workshop in grad school before it later became my thesis. People used to tell me how much it creeped them out back then, which always satisfied me in a perverse way. Some of the most important works I relied on include the books The Turn of the Screw, The Haunting of Hill House, House of Leaves, The Grip of It, The Little Stranger, Redeployment, The Lieutenant Don’t Know, The Short-Timers, the graphic novel The White Donkey, the documentary Combat Obscura, the feature film The Blair Witch Project, and a mid-series episode of The X-Files called “Field Trip.” I never close myself off from the influence of other work regardless of the medium or whether it suits my personal taste. Most of my novel was written and revised while listening to portions of the scores for the film It Follows and the Chernobyl series on HBO which corralled me into the right headspace.
BS: Finally, do you feel compelled to write more about the military, or do you have other ideas percolating?
JM: The Marine Corps feels like my wedge in the pie chart of war writing, but I like the idea of moving on eventually. I’ve been working on a collection of short stories inspired by my time in and I would potentially write a follow up novel to The Militia House as I have a great deal of interest in sequels. The opportunity to answer old questions while asking new questions is intriguing. Additionally, the trope of the “former Marine” or “ex-Marine” is fascinating to me, so I would be curious to explore that. Otherwise, I have a couple of novels in my queue that are inspired by other unrelated life experiences, but I wouldn’t be surprised if something military-adjacent grabs me again in the future. Either way, I always need to be making art or something feels off. That’s how I’ve always been.
I chose Robert Frost because I liked his name.
In the early- to mid-90s, when we Gen X-ers blew our free time at the mall, I could most often be found in either the coffee shop that put tons of whipped cream on their mochas (complete with chocolate shavings that made teenage me feel like a Very Fancy Coffee Drinker) or staring at the classics section in the Louisville, KY Oxmoor Mall Waldenbooks, the mall bookstore of the 1990s. I never knew what I was looking for, or even what I was looking AT for that matter, but I was drawn to those books simply because they were old -- stories of a time past that I would never truly know or experience, but which captivated my curiosity for as long as I can remember.
One of the first books that I bought for myself with my own money was The Complete Poems of Robert Frost. I loved the nature imagery that his name evoked -- frosty windows in our old and marginally-insulated house; crumbling stone fences in a snowy field, the naked limbs of trees reaching to the slate winter sky. To me, Robert Frost invoked magic, so I bought the book, fully believing that one day I would be a poet much like he was. Inside I found the one poem of his with which I was slightly familiar - 'The Road Not Taken," of course - and after memorizing that one I dove headfirst into this book and became obsessed with Frost and his poetry, finding a new favorite in "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening." Years later, I would find myself teaching this haunting poem to college undergrads, sparking intense conversations on the meaning of the last two lines. The mystery is compelling. To this day, this is one of my most favorite poems. I still own this book, now battered and torn, chewed by a rabbit, and yellowed with age.
Growing up, I was not incredibly interested in the popular books that my friends and classmates were reading, but was enamored by the stories and poems of people long gone who had unique insights about the world that I was navigating. When I was twelve years old, for example, I read Les Miserables, simply because I was fascinated by the sheer size of the book and the fact that it was old. Surely a book that size must contain a really amazing story, especially considering how long it had been around! While I skipped many sections that were in French, and I am sure that I did not understand the French Revolution bit, I finished that book lying under the front desk at my father's record shop, and I knew that I had just entered a new phase of my life, one in which literature would play a pivotal role. This would not have been possible without my deep love for old books, and the bookshop that made them accessible to me.
I wanted to create a classics section at Skylark that would have been exactly what I needed as a young teenager trying to figure out how literature would play a role in my life. I always knew that it would, but felt directionless when it came to buying these old classics, and I wanted a section for that person -- someone who had no idea what they were looking for, but who wanted to see what was available to someone interested in these ages-old texts. Our new classics section, affectionately titled "oldies but goodies," is curated for the curious, for the wanderer, for the dreamer. I wanted to create a section that someone with little to no knowledge of the literary canon could stand in front of and stare at in awe and excitement - a section that could change a life the way that the Waldenbooks' classics section did for me.
It was at this Waldenbooks that I eventually purchased Walden, the book that would influence the entire trajectory of my life and career path. The importance of that 90s mall bookstore deserves to be paid forward to the next generation of literary questioners. (I have promises to keep.) Come by and check out our new classics section in the shop. We are continuing to bring in new titles regularly, so you will see it fill out even more over time. If there is a title that you realize you never read but feel like you should, or if you just find comfort and excitement thinking about the thinkers and writers of the past, this section is for you. If you are curious about the world as it was, and appalled at how little some things have changed, this section is definitely for you. If you have no idea what it is that you like, but you feel drawn to these older texts for reasons you can not quite explain, this section is especially for you, my friend. May you find your Walden in these stacks.
With miles to go before I sleep, I wish you all happy reading.
