John Evans and Lemuria Books

John Evans opened Lemuria Books, Jackson, Mississippi's local book-store, in 1975. He sought to provide the community with harder-to-find alternative titles, rooted in books about psychology, art, metaphysical genres, and spirituality. I spoke to Evans about his journey with Lemuria, a store with a "book juke joint," and the undying commitment to real print books that vibrantly suffuses his life and Lemuria's mission as well.

Brittany Goss:

Can you tell readers a little bit about Lemuria?

John Evans:

My wife and I opened our doors in 1975 in a converted apartment. It was in a shopping center between the sexiest ladies' clothing store in town and the best bar and music venue. It was fortunate that we were there, because 90 days later I was waiting tables at the bar to keep the store open.

BG:

What made you decide to open a bookstore?

JE:

In the early '70s in middle America, there weren't a lot of alternative bookstores around. I was most interested in trying to provide an alternative selection of books to my community.

BG:

What kind of alternative selection did you want to provide?

JE:

At that time in Mississippi, psychological books, metaphysical books, art books, and new age books. Those books were hard to find. I was mostly using the bibliographies in the Whole Earth catalogs and things like that.

BG:

Did you find there was a big community response to having that alternative?

JE:

Well, you know, it wasn't big, but it was a start. We did poetry readings, all this kind of stuff htat provided an alternative to the Baptist book-store and the one chain bookstore in the mall, and the little mom-and-pop- type bookstore that focused on bestsellers.

BG:

What did you find that you loved about bookselling?

JE:

I learned so much. One of the beauties of being a bookseller is that you're learning constantly from the other readers.

BG:

So, Lemuria started in a converted apartment, but it's grown over the years, right?

JE:

Oh yes. I feel like the store has the same, for lack of a better word, essence. It kind of has the same aura as when it started—it just expanded and expanded and expanded, and as the booksellers learned more, it's become more diversified. As your tastes mature, so does your store. As your booksellers mature and become more diversified, so does the store.

Two years after opening, we moved into a shopping center, which was a new little cool thing in town, and we stayed there for 11 years, then moved into the present Lemuria. I was part of a group that built the building we're in now. Somewhere around 2000, we expanded into the store space next to us and created a fiction room. And then a couple of years later, we bought the old building next door and created an event space that we call our book juke joint.

BG:

A juke joint?

JE:

A juke joint is a Mississippi shack, or a southern shack, where folks get together on Friday or Saturday night and cut up.

BG:

Fun! What kind of events do you have where people cut up at the bookstore?

JE:

We do all kinds of things, but mostly we have a refrigerator full of beer, and we sell beer, which is mostly what a juke joint is. We have a whole wall of signed first editions down there and a stage, that kind of stuff.

BG:

What do you feel is the importance or the purpose of an independent bookstore in this day and age?

JE:

Of course, I think they're important for all of the obvious reasons, but the thing I'm seeing that's neat is when I opened Lemuria forty-two years ago, I was just trying to fit what I thought was a need in my community. I feel like a lot of the stores opening up are small, like Lemuria was, and they're trying to figure out ways to be more creative...