What Javier and Kristin Ramirez have built on Michigan Avenue feels like a cool secret. And that, in fact, was the idea. They built a small business, which, now three years later, is an influential one, its tendrils entwined with both the Chicago book community and the indie music ecosystem. They opened their shop three years ago, and to reflect their unwillingness to just be about books or just be about music, they named the place Exile in Bookville, a nod to Liz Phair’s 1993 Chicago-made debut album, “Exile in Guyville.”
To reach Exile in Bookville, first of all, head downtown. (Look, just do it, OK?) Find your way to the Fine Arts Building on South Michigan. Walk up a winding staircase of cold stone to the second floor — or take one of the building’s two manually-operated elevators. Nothing about Exile in Bookville should work as a business. It’s much too tucked away and clever. Since they can’t leave cool enough alone, even their bookmarks resemble concert stubs.
There are a lot of excellent bookstores in Chicago. When or if I leave Chicago and find myself back in the city for an hour, I will be hard-pressed to choose just one to revisit: Unabridged in Lakeview is great, as is the wonderful AlleyCat Comics in Andersonville, the Book Stall in Winnetka feels like home, and so does the cavernous 57th Street Books in Hyde Park.
But Exile in Bookville may be perfect.
I’m not alone in saying that. What the Ramirezes have built here has become something of a rallying point for Chicago authors, whose books the co-owners relentlessly cheerlead; when Javier and Kristin were married in October, no less than Chicago’s Gillian “Gone Girl” Flynn served as the officiant. Exile has become so beloved so quickly, customers have been married inside the store, saying vows in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out across Grant Park. Mainstream blockbusters are well-represented on shelves, alongside entire walls devoted to small publishers — who themselves, having found a friend in Exile, spread the good news. Despite being a pain in the rump location-wise, book-club meetings here have been packed, and author events occasionally require the Studebaker Theater on the first floor to handle crowds.
Last year when the NASCAR races in Grant Park shut down much of South Michigan to foot traffic and customers, Exile closed for a peak summer weekend. Ramirez went online to complain about how the city handled the race and the inevitable lost revenue that comes with businesses that are close to it. Within hours, local authors started a campaign asking readers to buy their books through Exile’s online store. During those days, the couple had more online orders (from other bookstores too) than they had in two years.
The Ramirezes wanted a bookstore exuding warmth, and they got it back tenfold.
“The vision was for more than a bookstore, but a hub, a hangout, a gathering place for local authors,” Kristin said, “and I didn’t expect it to happen for two reasons: I come to this from academia, which is cutthroat, where you tend to guard yourself against others. Also, this is a small business. I assumed inherent competition with other bookstores, but actually, we’ve become friends with other stores.” To foster relationships, the Ramirezes occasionally share with local bookstores their stock of books signed by authors — and in return, occasionally, they receive from those stores books signed by different authors.
That’s not common.
But there’s a real romance about Exile in Bookville.
You feel the city here. You can hear CTA buses. Tourists glide past on Segways in summer. Snow curls in the big windows in winter. The wooden floor creaks beneath your feet. Javier, manning the turntable at the counter, invites customers to play DJ and select a little vinyl to listen to while they browse. And browse is the key word. Think Woody Allen movies in the 1970s. Think customers without a plan, open to suggestions.
The result has been constant author readings with the hottest names in books and music: Percival Everett, Emma Straub, Ling Ma, Catherine Lacey, Ross Gay, Rachel Kushner, Jonathan Franzen, Seth Grahame-Smith. They’ve hosted events with bands like Mitski and Japanese Breakfast’s Michelle Zauner, author of the bestselling “Crying in H Mart.” Rebecca Makkai played a guest-bookseller at the store. And so did The National.
Much of that success, Kristin says, is because of Javier, who has been a networking Chicago bookseller for a couple of decades, though only now able to call the shots. Kristin was a criminal justice professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and Elmhurst University, and a big reader. They met when she was a customer at Madison Street Books, which Javier helped launch before falling out with its co-owners. To say he’s been around is an understatement: He’s been a judge for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize and Andrew Carnegie Medal; a programmer for Printers Row Lit Fest; a bookseller at Barbara’s, 57th Street Books, City Lit, Book Cellar, Book Stall, Book Table.
“Owning my own (store) was always the goal, the ideal,” Javier said. “Most of the people I worked for never owned a bookstore and never worked in book business before. They were often totally clueless about how this business works and what doesn’t work. It was like they were doing their best but to run the business itself into a ground. They would arrived with romantic ideas of owning a bookstore. The ‘You’ve Got Mail’ thing. They’d sit there and sip tea and sell a book, the customer leaves, a quiet life. It is not like that.”
The Fine Arts Building, 126 years old, had hosted bookstores before, but often the focus was used books. The owners of The Dial Bookshop handed off the space to Javier and Kristin with a stipulation: Exile needed to get rid of Dial’s used inventory. The property manager at the time also wanted nearly $60,000 in rent upfront, significantly reducing what Exile had held for new books. Not to mention, when they opened, during the spring of 2021, the pandemic was not over. Kristin describes the first six months as “terrifying.”
Then word of mouth traveled. Christmas 2021 was huge. Authors began to swing by. Three years later, Exile in Bookville has become such a draw for the Fine Arts Building that the Ramirezes have not been shy about trying to convince authors to rent lofts there, to create a dedicated literary enclave within the building’s century-old arts colony.
Now, when you stop in, nine out of 10 times, either Kristin or Javier will be there behind the counter. They don’t want staff. They want to sell every book in their shop themselves. Javier admits he may be there too much, always in shorts and a T-shirt from some band back in the day, Cibo Matto, Sonic Youth. You want to listen to vinyl, ask, but there’s a rule: You have to stay through at least one album side. Everything on their shelves tells a story. And so do albums, Javier will say. Their store, their rules.
cborrelli@chicagotribune.com
