An estimated 1,000 Clinton supporters flocked to New York’s Union Square, where their beloved candidate was due to unveil her explosive new memoir

The first person in line for Hillary Clinton’s book signing in New York said he had not voted at all in the presidential election – and that he regretted it.

Brian Maisonet, a 29-year-old from Brooklyn, said he had arrived at 3.30pm on Monday and waited outside the bookstore overnight to meet Clinton at a Tuesday afternoon event for her book What Happened, a punchy and personal account of her stunning defeat by Donald Trump.

Ten months ago, Maisonet did not cast a vote for either candidate. Now, he said: “I wish I had voted for Clinton. She would have gotten the job done.”

Clinton, who was surely pleased to see Maisonet and hundreds of others turn out for her event, has heard these kinds of expressions of regret before and, in the book, describes her frustration.

Since her stunning loss to a reality television star, she writes, more than two dozen women, most of them in their twenties, have approached her in public to apologize for not voting or doing more to help her campaign. While she is polite, Clinton says, she has sometimes wanted to say: “You didn’t vote? How could you not vote? You abdicated your responsibility as a citizen at the worst possible time!

“These people were looking for absolution that I just couldn’t give,” she writes.

By early Tuesday afternoon, the Barnes and Noble where Clinton held her book signing had sold 1,200 copies of Clinton’s new book, and a store employee estimated that nearly 1,000 people had waited in line to meetthe former presidential candidate. At least 400 of them had gathered before the bookstore even opened, in a line of Clinton supporters that stretched around an entire New York city block.

Clinton was nearly an hour late for the 11am event, leaving lines of hundreds of supporters snaking through multiple floors of the central Manhattan bookstore. But when she arrived, to the sound of enthusiastic cheers, she stayed for hours, scrawling her full name across book after book and pausing to shake hands and chat briefly with almost every person who crossed in front of her.

Many of those who waited five or seven or even more than 15 hours to shake Clinton’s hand said they simply wanted to thank her and tell her: “We’re still with you.”

“It’s worth it, it’s totally worth it,” said Laura Clementes, 51, who had taken the day off work and waited hours to get Clinton to sign her book. “That woman has more stamina than me.”

More than two hours into the book signing, Clinton’s fingers were stained with blue ink, and she was still listening intently and making bright conversation, telling her supporters, “Thank you” and “I appreciate it,” hoping a young woman was enjoying her visit to New York, telling a young man to say hello to his family for her, exclaiming, “I’m excellent! How are you?”

One woman said she told Clinton she wanted her to run again, but received no direct response.

Some Democrats have criticized Clinton’s new book, arguing that a book tour dwelling on Clinton’s loss to Trump is not what the party needs at this moment. In her memoir, Clinton comes out swinging against Bernie Sanders, the news media’s coverage of her campaign, the former FBI director James Comey, and the rampant misogyny facing women in politics.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Linda Webb, a Clinton supporter, shows off her badge. Photograph: Lois Beckett/The Guardian

But the most enthusiastic of the 65.8 million Americans who voted for Clinton seem to disagree. They are hungry for an authoritative account of what has happened to America – an account that comes from the candidate herself.

Several supporters pointed to the fundamental problem of the electoral college, which meant that Trump won the presidency, even though Clinton won the popular vote, with nearly 3m more votes cast in her favor. Many waiting to meet Clinton on Monday shared their candidate’s views about what had happened, pointing towards Russian interference, blatant sexism and racism, and the failure of Bernie Sanders supporters to rally around the Democratic party’s chosen candidate.

Kristen Blush, 36, said that even compared with Donald Trump, “I hate Bernie more”, saying of the Vermont senator who ran Clinton close for the Democratic nomination: “He hurt us from the inside.

“I want them to stop telling women to shut up, and I want them to stop telling Hillary to shut up and go away,” Blush said. She said she had met some of the other supporters in the line already, including one woman she had first encountered on social media as they both pushed back against the trolls commenting on Clinton’s Instagram account.

Blush said that as a “grown woman” she should be too old to wait in an all-night line, but she had wanted Clinton to know how much her supporters cared.

Clinton had seen. At about 10pm the previous night, the former secretary of state had pizza delivered to the dozen people who were spending the night on the pavement to see her. Her Twitter account had also sent an emoji-laden tweet sharing a photo of their surprised faces in front of a stack of pizza boxes.

Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) Enjoy! See you all tomorrow! 🍕🤗💪 https://t.co/2wJN2NJGWu

Among those waiting to meet Clinton were Allie Rohletten, a 20-year-old college student, who had been inspired by Clinton’s “history of proving that women can do anything men can do”, and Juan Cuba, a 29-year-old from New Jersey, who had felt that Clinton’s focus on supporting first-generation Americans and LGBT people, and her focus on mental health issues, had spoken directly to him. Even on his small salary working at a not-for-profit organization, Cuba said, he had given Clinton $10 a month the whole campaign.

There were Barb Schultz, 61, and her friend Sandy, both visiting from Janesville, Wisconsin, who wished Clinton had spent more time campaigning in their state, rather than assuming that she could win it. They said they believed many rural voters in their state would come to regret backing Trump, and wondered how any self-respecting Republican women had voted for the current president.

“I think, unfortunately, she brought some of Bill’s baggage,” said Schultz, a former public school teacher who said she had retired after her Republican governor had succeeded in taking away her union rights.

And there was Becca Brukaker, 21, from Boston, who was wearing a tiara and birthday sash and was celebrating her birthday with a trip to New York to wait in a long line for a signed Clinton memoir.

“I think it’s really important for little girls to see her get up from this,” Brubaker said. “It’s important for many women to see Hillary get back up from this.”

Kirsten Parisi, a 32-year-old New Yorker, said she valued Clinton’s lifetime of unwavering advocacy for Americans with disabilities. “She wasn’t looking for accolades. She just did it,” Parisi said.

But unlike other Clinton supporters, Parisi questioned whether it was still “too soon” for Clinton to be wrestling publicly with the reasons for her defeat.

“It’s like when your friend starts dating someone after a bad breakup and you’re supportive of them but you’re also like: ‘... Oooh,’” said Parisi, who had come to the bookstore during her lunch break at work in hopes of meeting the former candidate. “She’s not over that bitterness yet, which, I don’t blame her.”

The 10 months since Clinton’s defeat, on an election night that left her supporters stunned and weeping, were dark ones for those waiting in line. Cuba said one high point had been watching Clinton sit on stage at Trump’s inauguration, no matter what she must have been feeling inside. “Oh my god, she’s so strong,” he said.

“I really just want to say thank you, and keep fighting,” he said.

Maisonet, the very first person in line, said he had initially liked Trump’s focus on jobs, his America-first rhetoric, and “I liked the fact that he was honest – or seemed honest.” But after Trump’s comments about women – including boasts about sexual assault – Maisonet drew the line.

At the same time, Clinton’s past had concerned him. The allegations about “pay for play” with the Clinton Foundation had “rocked me”, he said, recalling seeing a documentary, Clinton Cash.

In November, he had chosen not to vote, feeling that “I just wasn’t convinced” on either candidate, and not believing that Trump could win.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hillary Clinton supporters wait for her to arrive to sign copies of her new memoir. Photograph: Lois Beckett/The Guardian

Maisonet said had not known that the Clinton Cash documentary and the book which had preceded it had been launched by a nonprofit which was co-founded by Trump adviser, and later Trump White House aide, Steve Bannon.

“Was it really?” he said. “That’s so scary.”

Speaking hours before Clinton arrived at the bookstore, he said he had been joking that he might ask Clinton, as she signed his copy: “What happened to the rest of those emails?”