Author and Columnist Shelly Reuben

It is that time of the decade for me to retire my slightly battered address book, and replace it with a new one. Which, absolutely, positively, I will do this week.

As always, the experience is going to be heart-wrenching.

You see, I have this rule. When friends are cruel to me because (“How dare I?”) I voted for Trump, or I believe that one can’t change his/her sex, or because I support Israel, I don’t take out a black crayon and angrily obliterate their names in that small, portable, white-pages-of-my life.

I just ignore them. The same way I would if they were sneering at me from across the room at a cocktail party. And after a while, I don’t even have to do the “ignore” part anymore, because my brain has some sort of a shut-off valve, and I stop seeing their names completely. As if they had never been there.

My friend Lucia, in a moment of pique, once snapped out the words, “Denial is under-rated.” Since then, I have pondered that statement often, and come to believe it has merit. Particularly when trying to figure out the behavior of people who are unfigured-out-able.

Deny. Deny. Deny … and move on.

Anyway, the good thing about a new address book is that, without having to feel malicious, or vengeful, or even reciprocally hurtful, I can simply leave the snubbers names off when I am creating a new address book. And, as the snubbee, forget about them. Forever.

There are other far less painful entries in an address book, however, that evoke gentle smiles of reminiscence.

The library, the post office, your favorite restaurant, that great antique store, the hardware store, the bakery … all in that lovely town where you owned a summer house for decades, but sold it because maintaining two residences just became … impractical.

The airline you had flown for so many years. From way back when you first left your parents’ house in the Midwest and moved to New York. Out of business.

Your long-ago veterinarian, dermatologist, dentist, accountant, jeweler … retired. Closed up shop. Moved to … who knows where?

Your old editors and publishers. Susanne quit and moved to Missouri. David quit and moved to Wisconsin. The companies (Dodd Mead, Charles Scirbner’s Sons, and Harcourt) were absorbed by conglomerates or went out of business, and now exist only as names on the spines of old books.

Then we have (or had) our favorite stores. Gimbels. K-Mart. Sears. Lord & Taylor (loved that store!) Peck & Peck. Bonwit Teller. Abraham & Strauss. Wanamaker’s. Pier 1 Imports. And so many more.

Nor should we forget those oh so well-loved (but non-transferrable to my new address book) boarded up and evacuated bookstores: Doubleday on Fifth. Coliseum on Broadway. Borders in downtown Brooklyn. Brentano’s. Waldenbooks. Tower Books. And (my favorite) Dauber & Pine.

The hardest thing about a new address book, though, is those beloved souls who inhabited our lives, our thoughts, and hearts from way, way back – before we had braces put on our teeth or sold our first book – to just last year. Last month. Last week.

People alive and well in all of our previous address books.

Gone now. Yet …

Yet … It is utterly impossible to pick up a pen and cross out their names.

And last year was particularly cross-off-able.

One of those “never send to know for whom the bell tolls” years, because that damn bell just kept tolling, and tolling, and tolling.

There was Bob. He had been my literary agent since Day One and always believed in me. When my books succeeded, he was there to help me celebrate. When they failed, he was there to remind me that one never gives up. He was smart, strong, innovative, successful, and … oh so very nice.

There was Ethan. He and I never met in person. He was doing book reviews on Amazon, when I sent him one of my novels and asked him to review it. He did. He fell in love with my writing. From then on, we were indefatigable pen pals. And he made the most interesting comments after every column I published. If he were still alive, heaven knows what he would have said about this one!

There was David. Another book reviewer, but he and I met in real life when he came to one of my book signings in Chicago. Dave was the one who gave me the title “Queen of Arson.” He never wrote fiction, but with his newspaper articles, he supported talent wherever he saw it, and he had a passion for newspaper work so immutable that he inspired me to write this column.

There was Jerry. A Brooklyn friend who worked long and hard to help better his community, and lived with his beautiful wife Diane, still a friend, in a Gingerbread House so magical (I am not exaggerating) that I lifted it, lock, stock, and barrel, from its moorings, and made it one of the main characters in my novel, Julian Solo.

There was Phyllis. A school nurse with a whimsical heart who lived on a farm, and had a gift for friendship. She and her ladies would have tea parties, and wear elegant over-the-top flowery hats. And in her wonderful country kitchen, she would make weary out-of-towners feel Oh So at Home!

There was Wesley. What a genius! He was an innovative scientist at DuPont who perfected Kevlar, and saved who-knows-how-many law enforcement-lives by doing that. He was also an artist (geometric abstractions), a gentleman, and an interesting soul with whom I could compare notes about poetry, although his favorite poems were so esoteric, I never understood a word.

And then, there was Byron. Oh, Byron. He and I went so, so far back. He had just returned from Vietnam, and I had just moved out of New York City. We became friends. Then he reenlisted; I shrugged, and moved back to Manhattan. And we wrote letters. His, from anywhere in the world. Mine, always from New York. Every 15 or 20 years, we got together for a few days of talk, talk, and more talk. Then … he was gone. Now, he is gone forever.

Sigh.

And I guess that’s it. Tonight, my old address book retires to its new permanent home in a drawer beside my bed. My new address book, with lots of empty spaces, goes into my purse.

Out with the old. In with the new.

At least, in theory.

But not really.

Not ever.

Copyright © Shelly Reuben, 2026. Shelly Reuben’s books have been nominated for Edgar, Prometheus, and Falcon awards. For more about her writing, visit www.shellyreuben.com