THE BOOKSELLER AT THE END OF THE WORLD by Ruth Shaw
New Zealand bookseller Ruth Shaw owns three small bookshops on her property at Manapōuri in the Fjordland area in the south of New Zealand.
Having lived a varied, interesting life, Ruth has told her story in her memoir, The Bookseller at the End of the World.
There are many aspects of Ruth’s life which I don’t want to write about, mainly because doing so would spoil reading the book! However, there was one section which I found utterly fascinating, and that was Ruth’s time living in Sydney’s Kings Cross, in what was essentially a social work role in the early 1980s. Those were the days when the Cross was awash with drugs, prostition and police corruption, with ex-police officer and convicted murderer Roger Rogerson right in the thick of it (Rogerson died last week in jail, incidentally, and not a day too soon).
Ruth knew Sallie-Anne Huckstep, a prostitute who fed information to police and got murdered as a result, Rogerson clearly the man who ordered her demise and was never convicted for it. Huckstep provided copies of information to Ruth, to be passed on should she be killed, and Ruth did pass that information on once she was able to ensure her own safety (but did not give evidence for the prosecution). This was, for me as a lawyer and daughter of police, fascinating reading and I understand why Ruth didn’t write in more detail - but gosh I think she would have some incredible stories to tell!
There was one other thing about Ruth’s memoir which she acknowledges but left me feeling very sad. Ruth spent the first half of her life running. She ran away from relationships, workplaces, countries. I don’t judge that - sometimes our lives take time to find peace within. However, I did feel particularly sad for Ruth’s ex-husband, “Matt”, whom she married in Papua New Guinea and then left without a word of goodbye. Ruth doesn’t really talk in depth about her reasons, beyond what she felt was pressure to “settle down”. I felt this left me, as a reader, feeling quite disappointed in her - that Matt perhaps deserved at least a goodbye or an explanation. In modern day terms, she ghosted him, and although in her acknowledgements she says she hopes he found happiness, I felt she owed him more than that - an apology. Women are perfectly entitled to make decisions for themselves, but I think we all have to be accountable to those we purport to care about, or at least give reasons so they, too, can move on with their lives. That part left me a little cold for a woman I thought was otherwise quite brave, quite adventurous and deeply fascinating.
There is so much more to Ruth Shaw’s story and I think it’s a really interesting one. I would absolutely LOVE to go and see her Two Week Bookshops (which are really three now!) on the South Island and have a cuppa with her and Lance. I love the interspersion of stories from the bookshops between the chapters of her life - they are sweet and capture the love so many of us have for bookshops and wonderful independent book sellers.
If you enjoy memoir, this one is a lovely one!
