We love, love, love this story about two Powell’s booksellers geeking out over Richard Brautigan’s former lover. The woman stopped by the store last week to pick up a copy of Brautigan’s story collection Revenge of the Lawn and mentioned to bookseller/author/editor/publisher Kevin Sampsell that she was the woman on the cover, the one smiling over the chocolate cake. “This was probably the closest I would ever get to the legendary author, so I instantly turned into super fanboy,” Sampsell writes. “I guess I felt kind of like a Star Wars fan meeting the guy who played Boba Fett or something. My lit-geek adrenaline was kicking in hard.” He and his co-worker started peppering her with questions, some of which she answered (a Google search later filled in some of the blanks). They didn’t take her picture, or buy her any cake, which they regret. Sampsell calls it a “strange and wonderful encounter.”
When you work in a bookstore, this kind of stuff happens every once it awhile, making your day, sometimes your week. We’re still talking about a conversation we had once with Faye Kesey. Sampsell has a way better story, though.