Rachel Pastan was sitting in a cafe in Southampton when her phone rang. She ignored it. When the student she was talking to left, she saw the missed call was from Beth, a woman she had worked with on a task force on housing affordability in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.
Beth was sitting in a cafe too, looking across one of Swarthmore’s main streets at a building she’d just learned was for sale. “Don’t you think Swarthmore needs an independent bookstore?” she asked.
Pastan said yes. Beth then asked the follow-up: “Don’t you think you and I should open it?”
A Town Too Small for a Bookstore?
Swarthmore has about 7,000 residents, including students at the local college. The town supports a coffee shop, a pizza parlor, and a small grocery store, but barely. Pastan wasn’t sure the town was big enough for a bookstore.
She was also thinking about what kind of place Swarthmore was becoming. “What was Swarthmore becoming, and was it the sort of place I would still want to live?” she wondered.
Her hesitation was personal. She had been teaching for years, but the work was drying up, and she felt less confident in her own clarity as a teacher. She had also spent decades working alone in a room as a novelist, and she was restless. She needed something not solitary, paying a salary, and writing adjacent.
The Zoning Code Defines Family
Pastan had been writing a novel about housing affordability when Beth called. She was fascinated and appalled by how local zoning laws keep housing costs high. Lots are often required to be large, driving up sale prices. Most neighborhoods are reserved for single-family homes, with no small apartment buildings or even townhouses allowed.
The zoning code in Swarthmore defines “family.” It means any people related by blood, marriage, or adoption, plus no more than two others. Yes, family is defined in the zoning code.
People say the laws are meant to preserve a place’s character. Many affluent communities don’t want less affluent people moving in. Property values, school class size, traffic, cultural norms — these concerns bubble beneath the surface, only occasionally voiced in angry outbursts at public meetings.
Housing Costs Rose From $370,000 to Nearly $600,000
When Pastan moved to Swarthmore in 2000, the median home value was $370,000. By 2022, it was nearly $600,000. The national picture was similar: the median home price rose from about $119,600 to about $300,000, according to the U.S. Census.
Some towns are pushing back against soaring housing costs. Newton, Massachusetts, has legalized accessory dwelling units, or ADUs — small homes on the same lots as larger houses. These units make space for people to live more cheaply, and the income from renting them helps the people in the larger, primary home afford to stay. Whole states like Connecticut and California have legalized ADUs recently. Not Swarthmore.
The Novel Grew Out of the Idea
Pastan’s novelist mind started turning all this over. ADUs, lots of people living together in a house — surely there was a story in there somewhere?
She turned the final draft of her novel in to her editor in August. Celia Bookshop opened its doors in October.
The novel follows someone who inherits a house but can’t afford to live there. She decides to build an ADU to rent out so she can stay, or invites her friends to move in with her. She doesn’t know that all these things are illegal until her neighbors get mad and try to stop her.
The plot is tied to grief. The house was inherited from her mother, who died.
Why a Bookstore Changed Everything
Pastan says the bookstore solved her need for more interaction. She applied for a seat on the town’s planning commission, which meant she had a voice and vote on zoning issues. But monthly meetings weren’t enough.
A bookstore was.
As she worked on the novel, Beth and Pastan decided to move forward with the project. Beth bought the building.
The Story Is the Novel
Pastan’s story reads as a deliberate pivot. She was thinking about housing affordability when Beth called. She was writing a novel about it. Then she answered the call and made the bookshop happen.
The irony is that the bookshop itself became the story. The novel grew out of the idea, and the idea became the reality.
What This Means for Swarthmore
Swarthmore is no longer a place where a writer and her college professor spouse can buy a home. Pastan’s experience is specific to her town, but the forces behind it are not. Zoning codes define family. Laws preserve character. Communities resist change.
ADUs are a solution in other towns. They work in Newton, Massachusetts. They work in Connecticut and California. Swarthmore hasn’t adopted them.
Pastan’s novel raises the question directly. What happens when a town stops being the place you want to live? What happens when the cost of staying is too high?
Celia Bookshop opened in October. Pastan’s novel followed shortly after. The bookstore exists now, and the story is done.
- Pastan answered the call
- The novel grew out of the idea
- The bookshop opened in October
- ADUs work elsewhere; Swarthmore hasn’t adopted them
The sequence is remarkable. A woman hears a friend suggest opening a bookstore, says yes, writes a novel about housing affordability, and then opens the bookstore anyway.
That is the story.