The owner of the McNally Jackson literary empire is reshaping the citys reading life.
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McNally considers herself a humble bookseller.
In December, the company celebrated its 20th anniversary.
McNally Jackson, one novelist said, conveys prestige better than anyone else.
McNallys is a thumb on the scale of cultural life in the city.
She hosts several book groups at the stores and privately runs several more.
McNally is professionally bashful about such associations.
She insists she isnt interested in the glow of fame.
Book people, we all live in refracted glory, she said.
Were not people who are looking for the spotlight.
Tall and beautiful, she speaks in full, carefully reasoned paragraphs that unfurl extemporaneously.
A terrifying thought, her ex-husband, Chris Jackson, said with a laugh.
She is there to provide.
McNally was born in 1975, the daughter of an academic and a social worker.
Her mother, Holly, gave up her career as untenable as the family moved around.
Sarah shrugged when I asked why: Its just sort of an idea she had.
Which is all the same with me.
This wasnt quite true.
My family didnt believe in allowance, McNally said.
I had my first job at 8.
I had to wake up before school and deliver newspapers.
Its so cold that your eyelashes freeze shut because of the condensation from your eyeballs, which are tearing.
Then she got an after-school paper route as well.
Shes spared her teenage son, Jasper, from that grind.
Youre ruining that boy, her parents tell her.
And Ill say, You ruined me, she said.
I cannot stop working.
At 13, Sarah began working in the back room at McNally Robinson.
I fell for it right away, she said.
I still remember every bookseller I worked with back then.
After studying philosophy at McGill, in Montreal, McNally graduated without a clue what to do.
She will never go back to Canada, I think, Prestini told me.
A love of reading, she said, thats the one tether, the one thing she got.
In New York, McNally looked for work in publishing.
And I had none at that time.
She eventually secured a junior-editor role at Basic Books but hated being trapped behind a desk.
But McNally was undaunted.
Neither scale nor niche seemed a guarantee of success.
McNally Jackson was a shoestring affair; early employees did anything and everything.
There were not, like, crowds fighting to get into the store, Jackson said.
The first staff hired were all friends or acquaintances writers and publishing-industry refugees.
(Jackson continued to edit and never had a formal position at the shop.)
No one goes into bookselling intending to make a fortune; for McNally, staying afloat was enough.
And yet despite the punishing margins, the store was profitable early on modestly, as she put it.
I thought it would survive, she said.
I thought that was as high as it would go.
There was very little about the bookstore business that McNally wasnt ready to rethink.
Contrary to prevailing wisdom, she jammed the stores with books, prioritizing shelf space over display space.
The meetings seemed to draw out her most earnest self.
My lifes work is maybe done, she said.
Im older than Casaubon, McNally replied.
You have to explain that to me.
Masterpieces can be fun.
Thats the takeaway here, she insisted at one point, her voice rising.
The meetings seemed like they served a private purpose for McNally.
Every artists art is their coping mechanism.
The book clubs give her so much joy.
I havent seen somebody so animated by a thing that could be so uninspired.
All of the stores have to reflect my taste, McNally said.
Even if its wrong.
But it wasnt really the wide selection that drew shoppers to McNallys stores.
Most of what she stocked, and everything she didnt, remained available on Amazon, often for less.
McNally had a vibe, a brand.
(His second novel,Blackouts,won the National Book Award in 2023.)
David Bowie would come in.
Whoopi Goldberg came in and bought a ton of books while I was there.
It definitely had a reputation.
McNally had a reputation herself.
Her name is also Nina, but shes obviously a superior breed of Nina.
McNally, though deeply charismatic, could be volatile; adoring but also remote.
Ive learned she has poor boundaries for an employer, Nina inTrue Lovegoes on.
Shes the Regina George of intelligent retail.
McNally was definitely a character, Torres told me: smart, bewildering.
She was extremely conscious of the impression she might be making on others.
I wore these Chelsea boots one day to work, he said.
She complimented me on my boots and was like, Oh, youve got big feet!
It was a nothing interaction.
For much of McNally Jacksons existence, it was McNally Jackson singular.
As McNallys home life became more complicated she and Jackson divorced in 2010 so did her work life.
Some business owners considering a second store would opt for something turnkey-ready; not McNally.
Still, when she proposed that McNally make her a profit-sharing partner, McNally accepted.
Within a few years, the two parted ways, splitting their business interests.
McNallys employees, however, were not feeling the success.
(This past holiday season, McNally Jackson was advertising jobs at $17 an hour.
The citys minimum wage at the time was $16.)
(McNally doesnt remember this.)
It didnt help matters when employees discovered she was buying a Fort Greene brownstone for $2.5 million.
At the end of 2019, the staff at all five stores voted to unionize.
Their complaints echoed what Gerard would later fictionalize: Favoritism is a problem at our workplace, they wrote.
The unionization process was contentious, and McNally admits to being personally hurt.
I really felt part of that team, she told me.
I love those people I thought we were one.
To realize that they were talking behind my back it was almost like high school.
Now there was no community to fill them.
But she wasnt ready to give up.
The company furloughed the majority of its employees, going from a staff of 100 to 15.
Previously, McNally Jackson had a very minimal web store.
McNally Jackson made it through the pandemic, and staff was rehired as the stores reopened.
The union contract was ratified in 2021.
The Downtown Brooklyn store had opened in 2020, and the one at Rockefeller Center followed in 2023.
This arrangement, in mixed-use complexes, suited both landlord and tenant.
It was a lesson learned from experience.
Her first shop still sits empty and derelict; graffiti has crept up its grates.
McNally walks around the block to avoid it.
Some McNally Jackson staff were unhappy with the hire, considering it a flat-footed move.
McNally acknowledged their complaints without changing her course.
I dont know why Im like this, she said by way of response, laughing.
I think I might take a more kind of European approach to justice.
Stein, she said, was definitely guilty of misconduct, but he hadnt deserved permanent exile.
(Stein declined to comment.)
(Haggis ultimately lost the case and was held liable to the tune of $10 million.)
The attack was in her apartment: A burglar followed her inside after she walked the dog.
McNally awoke to find the man gone and her son looking confusedly out the window.
He doesnt remember what happened, McNally said, but his knuckles were abraded.
Although the man was found and arrested within days, the event was profoundly destabilizing.
(Crosley wept when she saw them.)
The whole thing is just fucking awful.
She related the episode with unnerving composure.
She had learned some of the assailants story.
In September, McNally and I were emailing when I learned of the latest development in her growing empire.
She would open another stationery store in time for Christmas, she hoped and act as her own contractor.
Im so often at contractors mercy, she wrote.
What degree of expertise is needed?
Is it like hiring a project manager?
Im going to find out.
For years, McNally had an unusual degree of involvement in every aspect of her business.
She also acknowledged her particular intensity: McNally is currently pursuing a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.
Im pretty sure, she said.
I really value specificity, to a point which I think has made me good in some ways.
As McNally Jackson grows, so does its influence.
Even so, she is a rare presence at local indie-bookseller events.
So I think there is in some sense a little bit of, like, an awe.
McNallys atmosphere has become a bit more rarefied.
It reeks of algorithm, Doug Singleton, McNallys longtime director of operations, sniffed.
She is she perhaps has the freedom to be untroubled by lust for profit.
The McNally Editions imprint, despite the positive press, made a mere $10,000 last year.
By December, McNallys new store was nearing completion mostly.
Its hell, she said, popping out of a doorway on Broadway near 73rd Street.
Im a terrible contractor, she said, laughing.
Over lunch nearby, she promised this store would be her last.
Im turning 50, and I really want to step back and regroup, she said.
I want to do something a little more ostentatious, more truly helpful.
(She is in fact now ruminating on another bookstore, also for the Upper West Side.)
Wed been picking at plates of Mediterranean food, and she stopped.
I paid the check, and we parted ways.
Two weeks later, an email arrived.
I think there is something very interesting in your theory, she wrote.
I dont know if this was a professional turning point for me.
I have started reaching out to community partners to form survivors book groups and writing groups.
She maintained an almost childlike belief in their power.
There seemed to be no problem so dark that books couldnt be prescribed.
The clubs, she said dreamily, are my favorite thing.
You dont have to make small talk at all.
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