Book Club

‘What I look for in books is compelling people’: Meet Harvard Book Store’s Serena Longo

Longo joins Boston.com's Book Club to talk about the gripping but difficult narrative of Dennis Lehane's "Small Mercies."

By Shira Laucharoen

June 26, 2023

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Working at Harvard Book Store, currently as communications and people operations manager, has exposed Serena Longo to experiences she never imagined she’d have. In her 11 years at the bookstore, where she’s held a number of different roles, she’s been able to meet writers she’s long admired, like Margaret Atwood, Zadie Smith, and even Elizabeth Warren.

“I have met some of my favorite authors — so many of them — and I never expected to be in the same room as them, let alone have a conversation,” Longo said. “… There’s nothing like watching attendees leave those events, glowing, after speaking to their heroes.”

But those memories are bittersweet. Longo will leave the bookstore at the end of the week — her current New Hampshire residence makes the commute too far, but she emphasized that there are many things she will miss. Most of all, she will fondly remember the people, her co-workers, but the environment of the bookstore was something special, as well.

“[I’ll miss] the physical space. I love the space of the bookstore. I think it’s a really unique place and a magical place,” Longo said. “The sheer presence of all of the books and the way that they go all the way up to the ceiling and you’re surrounded in the stacks — I already miss that, because I am not local anymore, and I will miss it even more when I don’t work for the store.” She does not yet know what her next steps will be, but is embracing the unknown.

Longo first came to the Harvard Book Store after she graduated from Ithaca College and the Denver Publishing Institute. When she moved to Boston, she got in touch with someone from an alumni list from the Denver Publishing Institute, and they said the Harvard Book Store was looking to hire part-time staff. Longo loved bookstores and had dreamed of working in one as a child. She ended up staying — and wearing an assortment of different hats, including working as manager of marketing and events for four years prior to last summer. 

She has always had a passion for literature. Her parents would read to her from a young age, and growing up, she would listen to audiobooks on a Walkman. Today, she enjoys reading fiction more than nonfiction, emphasizing a love of realistic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and mystery. When she reads a novel, the most important aspect of it to her is character.

“It’s all about character for me,” Longo said. “I love seeing realistic, compelling characters, particularly seeing growth [or] evolution. Sometimes the evolution is in the wrong direction, and that’s really interesting too. I love human complexity. I think people are what I find most interesting in the world… What I look for in books is compelling people.”

Dennis Lehane is an author who excels at creating such figures. Boston.com’s Book Club is featuring his “Small Mercies” as this month’s pick, and Longo will be in conversation with him on June 27. This thriller is the first book from the writer — known for masterpieces like “Mystic River” — since 2017. 

The novel takes place in Southie in 1974 and is set against the backdrop of the desegregation of schools, which erupted into violence. It follows Mary Pat Fennessy, whose daughter Jules goes missing one night. When the top lieutenant of Marty Butler, chief of the Irish mob, asks her to wait, she does. But when no answers turn up, Mary Pat takes things into her own hands and begins exposing some tumultuous realities. The drama paints an unflinching look at racism during this period and the criminal world that governs the neighborhood, making for what Longo called a challenging book to read, but a powerful one.

“I knew that it was going to be a hard book: it hits hard when you start reading, and it doesn’t stop,” Longo said. “Some of that stuff, you don’t want to think about it, and you don’t want to dwell, but [the history is] real, it happened, and it wasn’t that long ago… You don’t have to have any degree in literary analysis to see the parallel to what’s going on in the world today.”

Longo added that Lehane’s development of character was particularly effective. Their internal lives, and how they evolve over the course of the novel, stayed with her while reading.

“Watching [Mary Pat] come to the realization over the course of the book that her daughter was a racist, and she had taught her that, that was agony,” Longo said. She added, “[Lehane] is so good at taking these characters who have some really awful, appalling perspectives on things and not shying away from that, not making them more likable than is realistic, but also treating them with empathy.”

Longo will speak with Lehane on June 27 at 5 p.m. about his latest work, which has been called “blisteringly honest.”

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