Silkhouette

Book-seeking students who enter the University Law Book Exchange and make their way along its narrow aisles, ever mindful of an always imminent cascade of volumes from the vast piles which tower through the length of the store, are absolutely certain to make the acquaintance of Abraham Isenstadt, the proprietor of the establishment. Mr. Isenstadt, no shrinking violet in any of his thirty-nine years, first dabbled seriously at bookselling while attending Boston University and the BU Law School. After graduating from the latter and being admitted to the Massachusetts bar, he elected not to practice law but instead went into the book business. Since then, Mr. I. has acquired a huge stock of assorted writings that fills the basement of his Boylston Street store and that of a neighboring barber shop, in addition to his business "cubby-hole."

Mr. I's chief claim to fame has been his recent activity in contesting the Boston censors and the Hearst press. After Lillian Smith's novel of miscegenation, "Strange Fruit," has been declared obscene literature by the Boston Watch and Ward Society, Isenstadt was approved by Bernard De Voto and members of the Harvard faculty and asked to test the validity of the ruling by selling the book openly in Cambridge. Mr. I, equally enthusiastic about constitutional rights and publicity, gave Cambridge Police Chief Leahy advance notice and was rewarded with a court summons the next morning when he handed Author De Voto his copy of "Strange Fruit." Counsel provided by the Massachusetts Civil Liberties Union and the book's publishers fought the case unsuccessfully through the Massachusetts courts. Isenstadt still can't sell the book in Cambridge but believes that a great deal of favorable interest and publicity attended the incident.

"Mr. Isenstadt will continue to sell any book published," stated Mr. I, inserting his right hand within his coat-front, "as long as it cannot be proven, beyond a reasonable doubt, to be pornographic. When a bookseller bucks Boston, he has to undergo a lot of direct and indirect persecution. Mr. Isenstadt has been undergoing this persecution but will continue to defend his constitutional right to sell books and the right of any individual to buy them." There followed a low murmur of applause from the first term law students jamming the aisle of the store.

Mr. I considers ex-Harvardman William Randolph Hearst "the biggest hypocrite alive" for his chain's campaign against so-called smutty literature, in view of the sexsational stories and headlines featured by his papers. Isenstadt believes that the next target of Mr. Hearst and the censors will be Charles Jackson's study of homosexuality, "The Fall of Valor." The novel is prominently displayed in the ULBE and will so continue, says Mr. I, despite Hearst's "nasty campaign."

Isenstadt thinks that literary Cambridge's greatest need is a bookstore specializing in scholarly items, such as out-of-print philosophical works and the like, and Mr. I eventually hopes to open such a shop. In the meantime, he'll continue to vend his variegated wares to countless classes to Cantabrigians, come hell, Hearst or high water.