by Jael Montellano
There is an exercise I practice with my therapist. I’m certain there is a name for it, but to command ownership of our own experiences, we largely work without labels, so I call it ‘Take a place.’ She asks me to imagine a place in which I feel safe; the purpose of this exercise is to invite my past selves to afternoon tea, to examine who shows up and what they (I) might have to tell me about my past and present.
Always, I imagine my grandfather’s library. My fingers remember the cloth of their spines, the smell of undisturbed dust from the room’s corners, the gentle warmth of the sunlight filtered through drapes. Somewhere in the crannies, a tin of half-eaten cashews.
To me as to my interviewee, Booklist editor Donna Seaman, books and libraries have ‘shaped’ and ‘steered’ our lives. In her new memoir, River of Books: A Life in Reading (University of Chicago Press), Donna traces her development through childhood and early adulthood following her bookish instincts and carries the reader along in her journey of discovery.
We corresponded to talk about her memoir, books, libraries, and more.
JM: You write about revisiting childhood books, for example, a collection of Chinese fairy tales you loved that later turned out to have been written from a French perspective. What prompted this exercise, this examination of self and life that led to writing River of Books? What surprised you about the process? What did you learn or re-learn about yourself?
DS: Ode Books was the brain child of Jeff Deutsch, former executive director for Seminary Co-op, a not-for-profit bookstore in Chicago. Ode Books is a series of concise works by book people about books and places devoted to books. The first title was Reading the Room: A Bookseller’s Tale, by Paul Yamazaki of City Lights, who received the National Book Foundation’s 2023 Literarian Award. My book is the second. When I was invited to write a title for this series I was a bit stymied as how to approach what I wanted to address, which was how books can shape and steer a life. I also wanted to share my deep appreciation for libraries. I had been writing personal essays for a lark, revisiting moments that seemed to have some wider resonance. These look-backs made me think the best way forward would be to track my path to doing what I do as a reviewer and book review editor for Booklist and as someone often in conversation with writers. This led to my thinking about why I read so much and which books were most formative.
My plan was to focus on the books, not so much on me. What was surprising to me was how readily I found myself telling stories about my past, given my preference for privacy. I did try to keep these forays brief, while writing at-length about books and writers. I ended up writing twice as much as ended up in the book. The editors I worked with kept asking for more personal tales and cutting literary sections. I reluctantly came round to their point of view.
As readers will see, one of the biggest discoveries for me had to do with a forgotten role my father played in preparing me for my destiny.
JM: There are studies that suggest excessive reading is a form of dissociation, something that I can attest was absolutely the case for me, a way to escape loss and migration and abuse. You describe your love of reading as a child as an escape from the adult world yourself. What were you seeking refuge from when you first noted your bookishness? Do you think you still read this way?
DS: I read to escape the confines of the self. I was a very fortunate child in a stable, loving home, but I was also porous to everything. I wanted respite from my self-consciousness, my fears, my anxiety, my anger, and the bullies who picked on and mocked me. But I also read in pursuit of the truth. I disliked being a child. I felt patronized, trivialized, boxed in. I read to learn about the world and to try to understand what goes on inside other people’s minds. I still read for these reasons. I rely on reading to keep myself on an even keel. I read books that reward my full attention, that take me out of my life and into another realm. I read to be transported and illuminated.
JM: I’d like to shift to something else you touch on within your memoir as important to you, which are books to motivate climate action, but specifically in light of recent events, let’s also talk about social justice and political action. Which books are you returning to in light of the threat of fascism? Which do you find crucial for our times?
DS: Any serious book about climate change is intrinsically about social justice and action. The forces behind the fossil-fuel industry and our failure to act on global warming are generated by the same sources and structures that perpetuate racial, class, and gender inequities, the same forces that stoked colonialism and anti-immigrant aggression. I’m inspired by the writings of passionate, knowledgeable, and enlightening writers who take on this matrix of issues, such as Barry Lopez, bell hooks, Terry Tempest Williams, Elizabeth Kolbert, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Edwidge Danticat, Leslie Marmon Silko, Isabel Wilkerson, Ibram X. Kendi, Matthew Desmond, Alex Kotlowitz, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Marilynne Robinson, I could go on!
As for writers specifically addressing fascism, I would call out Madeleine Albright, Masha Gessen, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Pankaj Mishra, Timothy Snyder, Rachel Maddow.
It’s so important to be informed, to understand the past and what’s at stake in the present. Read to counter the constant barrage of lies and disinformation. Read to sharpen your sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice, cruelty and compassion. Read to find in-depth analysis and facts instead of scrolling through pumped-up opinions performed and expressed for clicks and followers.
JM: Throughout your memoir you mention you kept lists, and the chapters themselves are interspersed with lists such as, “What I Hope For In Books,” or “Why Read?” As a child, you kept lists of books you wanted to read, lists of books you read that left you puzzled, lists of words, and then later job lists of what your bookish possibilities were. What do you keep lists of now?
DS: I keep enormous to-do lists for my work as editor in chief and adult books editor for Booklist. This is all-consuming; I have lists of books that need to be assigned to reviewers and books I hope to read and features that need to be created and many other tasks that must to be completed, and on and on. I also keep personal to-do lists for my own projects, lists of people I need to email, and lists of all the usual chores. I make pro-and-con lists when I feel cornered about making decisions and, in the blue hours, lists of my failings. Perhaps these verge on the bizarre, but thankfully no one sees them but me.
JM: I find it fascinating that you attended the Kansas City Art Institute and concentrated in sculpture, working with fiber, stone, metal, but also looms and tapestry, something so apparently divergent from writing. Your cover too depicts one of your own artworks. Have you continued working in fine arts in some capacity? Have any of your artworks been a direct response to a book you have read, and if so, which? What moved you about it/them to distill into another medium?
DS: I have not made visual art in a very long time. I do harbor a small flame, a little pilot light of hope that someday I’ll return to it. For now, I’m an art appreciator. I feel so recharged and elated when I look at art in museums and galleries. I love how much art one can lose oneself in online. When I was making art, literature very much inspired me. I made works in the light of myths and novels; I was particularly fascinated by tales of rivers and the sea, boats and ships. I loved reading Melville and Joseph Conrad. When I read, my brain lights up with images conjured by words; reading richly descriptive writing generates an inner galley of images or a mind-movie. I feel, in every cell, that word and image are meshed in a symbiotic relationship. When I look at art, words surge forth; when I read, images coalesce. Each is inspired by the other.
JM: The section of your memoir describing Chicago comes alive to me, your depiction of a Chicago winter in particular. In this city of grit, you completed your Master’s in English at DePaul University. Despite already having been a very versed reader by the time you began your Master’s, you describe attending classes hoping “to grow tall enough,” in which I read something of impostor syndrome. What was the measuring stick by which you found yourself wanting as a graduate student? What made you decide to continue reading and writing criticism as opposed to creative writing?
DS: Because I had such an unconventional education during my last two years of high school and in art school, and because of my rebelliousness, I had large gaps in my liberal arts education. I was not fluid in rhetorical and philosophical concepts and terms; I hadn’t read many standard texts. I wasn’t used to the sort of analysis and discussions that were taking place in class. I had to work hard to acquire the knowledge I needed. So yes, I felt like an imposter. But I was also exhilarated and enthralled by what I was reading and learning.
I wanted to write creatively and did so in secret, but I had zero confidence on that front. I very much wanted to find a way to earn a living that involved books, so that quest eventually propelled me to reviewing and to Booklist and to all that has evolved from that involvement.
JM: How has your reading process changed over the years, especially once you began working for the ALA and Booklist? How do you approach a textual reading for criticism, for the magazine especially, as opposed to a book you might pick up simply for pleasure? Do you make annotations, lists? Are there secondary readings, etc? What do you pay attention to?
DS: I read very actively for criticism, pen in hand, fingers on keys. I take notes; I look up all kinds of things, often getting waylaid as one disclosure leads to another. I consult the dictionary. I reacquaint myself with the writer’s previous works, or, in the case of a new author, I find out what I can about their background. It’s all about asking questions and looking for answers. At the same time, I do want to be swept away by a book, especially when reading fiction or poetry. So I do let myself sink completely into the world or the vibe, and then go back and research details. I try to be wholly attentive to everything. I strive to be accurate and to understand what I’m reading as thoroughly as possible.
JM: In your closing pages, you touch on the importance of reading in light of the recent censorship of books. You write, “In times of reversal, blockage, misdirection, and defilement, we need to champion reading and writing.” Because you and I both work within this industry, we champion this on multiple levels, even in our existence. What advice would you give the common reader as to how they might champion reading and writing in their communities in these times?
DS: I love your saying that our very existence as people working with books means that we are championing the freedom to read. That is true of every reader. Everyone who uses their public library and buys books at indie bookstores is championing our right to read freely and offering tangible support to those often struggling institutions. We also need to actively push back against book challenges and book bans. Voice your support for librarians and teachers who are under attack. Speak up at library and school board meetings if attempted censorship is underway. The vast majority of us want books to be available to readers of all ages. We respect the expertise of librarians and teachers who guide young people’s reading. Adults should be able to read without restrictions or obstructions. Readers can find lots of information and ways to be involved at Unite Against Book Bans: https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/ We do have the power.
Donna Seaman is the adult books editor at Booklist, a member of the Content Leadership Team for the American Writers Museum, and a recipient of the Louis Shore Award for excellence in book reviewing, the James Friend Memorial Award for Literary Criticism, and the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. Seaman has written for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and other publications. She has been a writer-in-residence for Columbia College Chicago and has taught at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Seaman created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness, her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books, and she is the author of Identity Unknown: Rediscovering Seven American Women Artists.
Jael Montellano (she/they) is a Mexican-born writer, poet, and editor. Her work exploring otherness features in La Piccioletta Barca, ANMLY Lit, Tint Journal, Beyond Queer Words, Fauxmoir, The Selkie, the Columbia Journal, and more. She is the interviews editor at Hypertext Magazine, practices a variety of visual arts, and is currently learning Mandarin. Find her at jaelmontellano.com and at BlueSky @gathcreator.