Amina Cain Interviews Skylight Books
Amina Cain talked with Skylight Books in Los Angeles for BOMB and we missed it? We are slow or stupid. But Skylight is one of our favorite U.S. bookstores. Cain interviews Steve Salardino and Jenn Witte about "the third place," Los Angeles as literary city, and more.
AC I like that the “book” is one of your favorite kinds of art.
SS With a film or painting, we’re all looking at the same image. I look at Picasso, and you look at Picasso—we see it differently but we’re seeing the same line. The image in a book is being created in your head by language, which is an abstract artwork in itself. It’s almost manipulative from the inside out. That’s what I like most about books and why I think bookstores are incredible.
JW I’m from a small town that was very isolated and we didn’t have a bookstore, and now I’ve finally found and established myself in one, and it’s just a constantly exciting experience. And really public.
SS “The third place,” where people can gather that’s not work or home. There aren’t many of those places left. It’s like a library almost.
JW I feel a responsibility for that. I like doing the research. We carry old guidebooks and stuff, and can like look at this trail map and help you find your way!
AC I want to ask if you think of L.A. as a literary city. People are forever saying it’s not at all literary, and for me it’s perhaps because I’m a writer and reader that I know lots of other writers and readers here, but as booksellers—who spend time in a bookstore every day—what’s your take on this question?
JW I know this bookseller who just started his own publishing thing, and I’m excited for him and it’s really brand new, and exciting, and not married to the traditions . . . I don’t want to sound cheesy, but I was giving him a motivating speech, and I said, “All that stuff is behind you! You’re looking out now onto the Pacific and it’s completely wild and the most powerful force in the world.” That’s how I see literary culture in L.A.
AC I feel that too, that so much is possible here because it’s not so circumscribed, or laid out—
JW And this is an exciting moment, people are making instant connections all the time, it’s huge.
SS Something I didn’t realize until I was in books was that there was a New York publishing idea. But we have a really rich literary history—we have hugely influential literary people from Los Angeles and California, like the beatniks. So it’s always been kind of confusing to me, because when people say it’s not literary, I’m like, “Compared to what?” Of course, I guess everybody has their scenes. But at the same time, I do feel that, as a writer, the literary scene in L.A. is so vast and spread out—that it doesn’t have much of a center—so maybe that’s why New York or San Francisco might be easier, because it’s more condensed. You can easily get from one event to the next, whereas we have to spend an hour and a half on the freeway. I thought the Los Angeles Review of Books could be a kind of center…
AC It’s definitely a nice addition.
SS And I do want that. I want some sort of, I don’t know . . . In L.A. in the 90’s when I would go to shows I always felt like there was a “scene.” But I don’t feel like there is one literary scene nowadays, and I think that’s okay—
JW I think that’s more exciting!
SS Yeah, I mean there are all the different genres out there, but it does make it harder to find things. If I wanted to go to something literary tonight I don’t think I could just find an event, where I feel in New York I could.
JW All that sounds to me a little elitist, like a scene with an establishment. And maybe we’re immune to that, maybe?
Find out at BOMB. Photo of Skylight Books by Kelly Brown.