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The Book Pages: A real Southern California Underdog story

April 15, 2023

I always root for the underdog, and I’m not the only one.

Hundreds came out on Saturday to welcome Underdog Bookstore to Monrovia, says Nathan Allen, who owns the store with his husband Thomas Murtland. (Visitors included Octavia’s Bookshelf owner Nikki High, offering another example of the wonderful, supportive people running our local bookstores.)

“We were really happy with the number of people who came. We had a Drag Storytime in the morning, which was really successful, with Pickle the Drag Queen. And we also had Carolyn Huynh, who is the author of ‘The Fortunes of Jaded Women.’ She was here to do a book signing and a reading,” says Allen.

And they got to use the big ribbon-cutting scissors, right? “The Chamber of Commerce came out and did a ribbon cutting for us, which was great,” he says.

Nathan Allen, who owns the Underdog Bookstore with his husband Thomas Murtland, at work in the shop on April 13, 2023. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)

The store, which is on 312 S. Myrtle Ave. across from the library, is a welcome addition to the area. Allen explained why they chose Monrovia.

“I’m actually a Pasadena native, born and raised in the same house that my mom grew up in. So I have lots of ties in this area,” says Allen, who adds that his husband grew up on a small island off the coast of British Columbia. “He’s used to a very small town, so Pasadena ended up being too big a city for him. So we moved a little bit out away from Los Angeles towards Monrovia.”

Allen says Murtland had always wanted to open a bookstore, and they both have another dream they shared together.

“We were talking actually about raising a family. We really wanted to create a space that nurtured the community in a way that made it safer for our future kids,” says Allen.

“One of the ways that we thought about doing that was through a bookstore,” he says.”Our bookstore focuses almost exclusively on authors of color, LGBT and disabled authors, as well as small and medium presses, which is who we categorize as underdogs.”

As well, the store aims to make finding books by these authors easier.

Nathan Allen and Thomas Murtland, owners of Underdog Bookstore, celebrate with Pickle the Drag Queen during the store’s grand opening on April 8, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Nathan Allen / Underdog Bookstore)

“We aren’t organized like a normal bookstore that would have fiction, nonfiction, etc. We’re actually organized by demographic. So we have AAPI, we have Indigenous, we have Black authors, we have LGBT authors,” says Allen. “We really wanted people to be able to come in and find stories that they were interested in or find stories that reflected their own identities.”

Underdog started as a pop-up at the Monrovia Street Fair – which is one of the reasons the store also stocks items from local vendors – and Allen says they soon knew they wanted to find a permanent spot there.

“We felt like a bookstore was missing on Myrtle, so that’s one of the reasons we targeted it,” he says. “We found a place that worked well for us and transitioned to a brick-and-mortar store.”

Considering what is too-often seen in the headlines these days, I asked Allen if there’d been any negativity directed toward the store.

“Everyone that came to our Drag Storyhour was happy about the Drag Storyhour,” says Allen, who was aware of some negative comments made on the Nextdoor app. “But I think that if people are looking for a bookstore that doesn’t have a gay agenda, they probably are not looking for a bookstore that’s run almost entirely by two gay owners.

“In general, the community has been very supportive of us, which has been great to see,” he says. “Our doors are open to everyone.”

My tote from Underdog Bookstore. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)

That includes the store’s other inspiration, who can often be found in the shop.

“We have a cute little two-and-a-half-year-old pug. Her name is Arbutus, which is the name of a tree on the Pacific West Coast. She usually goes by Booty, and so she was kind of the perfect mascot and it all kind of came together.”

Inside the Underdog Bookstore in Monrovia. (Photo by Erik Pedersen)

Novelist Don Winslow shares one of his writing secrets

Don Winslow, who is the author of 23 novels, announced he was retiring following the publication of his final trilogy, which began with “City on Fire” and continues with “City of Dreams.” (Photo by Robert_Gallagher / Courtesy of William Morrow)

Don Winslow is the author of 23 novels, which include “The Winter of Frankie Machine,” “The Force” and the Cartel Trilogy. Last year, Winslow announced that he was retiring from writing novels following the publication of his final trilogy, which began with “City on Fire” and continues with “City of Dreams.” The new novel, which takes protagonist Danny Ryan to Hollywood, arrives in stores on Tuesday and Winslow will be appearing at Warwick’s in San Diego on April 18 and at Book Soup on April 19. Winslow spoke about his books, political activism and more, and in this Q&A, which has been edited for length and clarity, he talks about the books and people that have made an impact on his life.

Q. Your mother was a librarian. Did she have the biggest impact on your reading life?

My dad was an inveterate reader, a career Navy guy who loved books, and my mom’s a librarian, so you get that combo plate. We always had books around the house. I grew up in a very small New England town, but I could go into that library and go anywhere in the world, at any time period in the world, just by wandering six feet down a bookshelf.

My parents also allowed us – my sister and me – to read anything we wanted at any age; there was no censorship. My sister [Kristine Rolofson] also became a professional novelist, by the way, with 43 published books. I don’t think that’s coincidental. So yeah, they were both huge influences.

Q. Do you and your sister ever compare notes?

No. [laughs] We write in very different genres, and so there really weren’t a lot of notes to compare. We’ve compared notes about the writing life, you know, like how do you go about it and what’s your day like and all that kind of stuff, but not not so much on the technical work because our our genres are so different. She’s very good at it.

Q. Do you remember the first book that really made an impact on you?

I remember a book called “Mila 18” that my dad turned me onto by Leon Uris – and I want to say a book called “Armageddon” by him as well.

Shakespeare, I started reading, or attempting to read, when I was six years old. Later in life, I started a Shakespeare program here at the local elementary school; I think they just did their 27th production of Shakespeare. It’s elementary school kids doing cut-down Shakespeare – you know, 40-minute versions – but all of Shakespeare’s words. So, those were very influential.

Q. What is something about your books that nobody knows?

Not to be too self-serving but I often think about the phrase “the effort it takes to make something look effortless,” you know? I hope that the books look effortless.

Q. The narratives feel pretty effortless to read.

That’s all in the rewriting. The first few drafts, I’m not thinking about the reader at all. I’m just amusing myself. But then, as the drafts go by toward the final two or three drafts, all I’m thinking about is the reader: Does the story makes sense? How does the dialogue sound? How does it look to the reader’s eye? Because we tend to forget that reading is a physical activity as well as an intellectual one.

Q. The way the words look on the page is important. People don’t typically talk about that.

Yeah, exactly. I will step away from the screen to the point where I can’t make out the words, only the shapes. And the question I ask is, Does it look like what it’s supposed to be? You know, if it’s a fast action sequence, it should look really dense because you’re not letting the reader go. But if I want to focus the reader on one or two small images or lines of dialogue, then it needs to have negative space, it needs to have white space on the page. It’s important. I know it’s important to me as a reader.

There are times I’ll add, literally, a syllable if it’s available to change the look of a sentence or a line.

Q. Now, book recommendations: I know one of your favorite books is “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” so I wanted to ask if you could recommend another crime novel, or, if you prefer, a book completely outside that genre.

Boy, I can answer both questions. In terms of the P.I. novel, I don’t think it’s ever going to get any better than Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye.” You know, he was the grandfather of us all.

And Lawrence Block’s Matt Scudder series – “When the Sacred Gin Mill Closes” would be one book I’d instantly bring up.

There’s so much good stuff, you know, you almost hesitate to answer these questions for fear of leaving somebody out. I mean, I could go on for an hour.

The latest book I read that I really loved outside of the genre is called “The Last Gift” by Abdulrazak Gurnah, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature. I just loved it. He’s Zanzibari. My education is in African history; I read a lot of African literature. He lives in England now and has for a long time. And it’s just a beautiful, beautiful book.

Don Winslow will be appearing at Warwick’s in San Diego on April 18 and at Book Soup on April 19 to speak and sign books.

More Book Stories

Novels and nonfiction are among the excellent books coming out in the coming months. (Covers courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Flatiron, Graywolf, Harper, Little Brown, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Riverhead)

15 books

Don’t miss these upcoming books we’re looking forward to this spring. READ MORE

• • •

Mensun Bound, director of Exploration of Endurance22 expedition and author of “The Ship Beneath the Ice,” on the sea ice of Weddell Sea, in the Antarctic. (Photo by Esther Horvath/Falkland Islands Maritime Heritage Trust / Courtesy of HarperCollins)

Cold as ‘Ice’

How Shackleton’s Endurance inspired a modern expedition to find the sunken ship. READ MORE

• • •

“Romantic Comedy,” a novel by Curtis Sittenfeld, is among the top-selling fiction releases at Southern California’s independent bookstores. (Courtesy of Random House)

The week’s bestsellers

The top-selling books at your local independent bookstores. READ MORE

• • •

Bookish (SCNG)

What’s next on ‘Bookish’

The next free Bookish event is April 21 at 5 p.m. with guests including Sharon Gless, Ari Shapiro and more talking books with host Sandra Tsing Loh.

That’s it for this week. Please write me at [email protected] to share news, notes and books you’ve been enjoying, and your comments may appear in the newsletter.

Thanks, as always, for reading.

Orange County Register

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The Book Pages: A real Southern California Underdog story

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