Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade in 1989, five years after they started Politics & Prose, on the occasion of their moving the store across the street from its original location to the site where it still resides.

A few years ago, when Melville House was still a company headquartered at my kitchen table, the co-owner of that kitchen table — Valerie — and I found ourselves in Washington DC to protest one of the many abominations of the Bush administration, and we decided to cheer ourselves up afterwards by visiting one of the many inspiring local landmarks: Politics & Prose, the indie known not only as a great bookstore, but as a great champion of leftist principles and the independent spirit. The owners — Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade — also struck us as feminist icons in the way they were so often raising such a ruckus in the very macho seat of our government.

Valerie and I hadn’t been in business for long and weren’t yet in the habit of introducing ourselves to booksellers. In fact, we’d never done it before. But we are the kind of people who can get emotional about what a good bookstore represents and that day, after hours spent shouting in increasing hoarseness for peace, we became swept up in that sort of thing and before we’d quite figured out what to say we had marched up to the stout, white-haired woman working the register and asked to see the famous owners.

“Who are you?” she asked brusquely, all business. We told her we’d just started, well, a publishing company, and we quickly mentioned our first two books, which were in the store, thinking it might make us to seem more legit and help us get in to see the great ladies. The woman just looked at us, but then a smile began to take over her face. As it turned out, she was one of the great ladies. She was Carla Cohen, and after a moment’s chit chat — we mumbled something about wondering how to keep getting our books in the store, didn’t want to take up her time — she said, “Wait here.” She came back with Barbara Meade. Both of them took us in the back office to show us Barbara’s desk, which was covered in catalogues from publishers. Just the site of it was enough to daunt a little publisher. But Barbara put a hand on Valerie’s sagging shoulder and said, “I read them all. I read yours just a few days ago. Some interesting things coming.”

The store was busy but both women deflected a demanding staff long enough to give us a tour of the inner sanctum of the store and make us feel as if we — publishers of poetry and lit-crit only, at that point — were as important to their business as Random House. In fact, as we finally left, Carla congratulated us for being so insane as to start a publishing company, and told us, “I’ll keep an eye out.”

It was the kind of boost you need early on, and I’ve since heard from other little publishers who got a similar, royal treatment from the store. But the thing is, it didn’t stop there. Carla would come by our booth at the BEA to say hello and ask about new titles. When we were trying to crash a book about holding on against the Bush administration, she agreed to take early copies so we could say we’d gotten it into America’s most important political bookstore first. It inspired other indies to take it on.

Of course, Carla was only half the act. Barbara didn’t forget us, either, and when Valerie and I visited Politics & Prose last Friday she reminisced with us about that first visit. She also reminisced about her partnership with Carla Cohen which, she explained, and as we could tell from the distracted gazes of the staff, was about to come to an end. As, sadly, it did yesterday morning, when Carla died at age 74 from a rare and thereby doubly vicious form of cancer.

You can read about Carla in the obituaries that ran in any number of prominent publications — the remembrance at the Washington Post is particularly lovely. Hillel Italie does a nice job in a notice for the Associated Press, and the New York Times has a rather sadly perfunctory obit from Ashley Parker. But the piece that you should probably read is the moving good-bye from the staff at Politics & Prose that appears on the store’s website, and that contains an anecdote that pretty much says what you need to know about Carla Cohen:

Cohen sometimes responded to customers in a less-then-politic way: “Why would you want to read that; it’s dumb,” she would say to a customer asking for a book of which she disapproved. “You would enjoy this a lot more — and it’s a far better book.”

Our deepest sympathies to everyone at the store and to Carla Cohen’s family. Also, to those of us in the book business. We lost a great friend and relentless ally.

At the store’s suggestion, you can leave your condolences here. Meanwhile, Carla Cohen lives again in this Youtube interview in which she talks about creating Politics & Prose ….