Metuchen cultural hotspot will close at month’s end

Raconteur has served as far more than a bookstore during its seven-year run

BY JACQUELINE DURETT Correspondent

 Alex Dawson Alex Dawson The community will bid farewell Jan. 31 to what has since 2004 been a cultural institution in the borough: The Raconteur.

Owner Alex Dawson said his plan was to take on this endeavor — owning the bookstore that did much more than just sell books — for about seven years. He opened the business after running a theater company for six years.

“My mission was to operate a free cultural center, which of course is not a money-making mission … it’s more of a community service. I knew I could only afford to do this for a finite period of time, and I knew too, that I would eventually need to return full time to my own creative pursuits,” Dawson said. “Indeed, I half-planned the 2012 closing those seven years ago, and well, I’m right on schedule.”

The Raconteur exposed customers not only to books, movies and music, but also to the artists behind the media, with poets, novelists, musicians and filmmakers often taking part in events there. Dawson has also partnered with nearby Forum Theatre to present events. The impact of the business has even prompted a documentary from filmmaker Nick Dua called “Death Comes to The Raconteur,” which will be screened in May, according to Dawson.

There have been plenty of memorable times over the past seven years, Dawson said, including appearances from Pulitzer Prize-winning Irish poet Paul Muldoon and the late writer Jim Carroll and Oscar-winning documentarian Alex Gibney.

Dawson announced in November that The Raconteur would “shut up for good” on Jan. 31. And the reaction from the Metuchen community and beyond has been overwhelming.

“The outpouring of loss and gratitude and regret, not only from the arts community but from the general community of Metuchen proper, as well as the larger community of central Jersey, has been very moving and profound,” he said, adding that he has received hundreds of emails, letters and phone calls. “It’s all been very flatter- ing, of course, but emotionally exhausting.”

Grace Shackney of the Metuchen Arts Council is among those will miss the shop.

“The Raconteur has been an important place for artists and the public to gather. It has been a place, under Alex Dawson’s curation, for experimentation, artistic expression and artistic solos,” she said. “But the bookstore is only a place. The heart and soul of it is Alex Dawson and he is not closing up … far from it. I am so looking forward to what Alex will produce after he is no longer tethered by the demands of a retail establishment. I have a good feeling that the best is yet to be.”

And The Raconteur is not going out quietly. Many events have been planned leading up to the final day, including staged performances of a lost Marx Brothers play called “Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel,” featuring Bobby Hegyes, who played Epstein on the television show “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Performances are at 8 p.m. Jan. 6 and 7:30 and 9 p.m. Jan. 7, and carry a cost of $10.

There will be two farewell parties, Jan. 15 and 21, which will feature live music and sideshow performers such as sword swallowers and escape artists, Dawson said.

The last big event will be on Jan. 28 at the ForumTheatre. That’s when Oscar-winning filmmaker Vanessa Roth will screen and discuss her new documentary, “American Teacher,” which is narrated by Matt Damon.

Those looking for last-minute bargains may want to stop by — not just for books, DVDs and records, but for other items not readily available anywhere else, such as taxidermy, fencing foils, illuminated glass globes, antique typewriters, “and even the bookshelves themselves, which we’ll be burn-branding with the letters ‘RAC,’” Dawson added.

Prices will steadily decline until the final days and will conclude with an in-shop auction .

But that’s not all, Dawson said.

“A lot of people have come in wanting Raconteur mementos. We’ll have ‘RIP RAC (2004-2012)’ T-shirts available in about a week and a half. But in stock right now is ‘The Raconteur Reader,’ an anthology of work by various acclaimed authors who have read here. It comes with a free CD.”

Dawson said he has some large projects on the horizon, and while he’s not at liberty to discuss them yet, he encourages anyone interested to sign up for the email list at http://raconteurevents.blogspot.com.