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Set in Carmel-by-the-Sea and Hollywood, Typewriter Beach is an unforgettable story of the unlikely friendship between an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress hoping to be Alfred Hitchcock's new star.
1957. Isabella Giori is ten months into a standard seven-year studio contract when she auditions with Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio's "fixer" in a tiny Carmel cottage, waiting and dreading.
Meanwhile, next door, Léon Chazan is annoyed as hell when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won't be able to sell, because he's been blacklisted. Soon, they're together in his roadster, speeding down the fog-shrouded Big Sur coast.
2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather's cottage, finds a hidden safe full of secrets—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was, and whether she can live up to his name.
In graceful prose and with an intimate understanding of human nature, Meg Waite Clayton captures the joys and frustrations of being a writer, being a woman, being a star, and being in love. Typewriter Beach is the story of two women separated by generations—a tale of ideas and ideals, passion and persistence, creativity, politics, and family.
"[An] irresistible story...Clayton expertly interweaves Gemma's, Isabella's, and Léon's tales as each attempt to forge their path in a cutthroat industry. Readers will be riveted." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Though the information about old Hollywood may interest film buffs, excessive details about films, Oscar ceremonies, and actors slow down the narrative and do little to advance the plot. The 2018 strand is more engaging, but also moves slowly...An unhurried tale about the flaws of the film industry and the healing power of human connection." —Kirkus Reviews
This information about Typewriter Beach was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
New York Times and international bestseller and book club favorite Meg Waite Clayton is the author of nine novels, including Typewriter Beach (Harper, July 1, 2025). Her prior novels include the international bestsellers The Postmistress of Paris (a Good Morning America Buzz Book, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Publishers Weekly notable book, and a Costco Book Club, People Magazine, Indie Next booksellers, LoanStars librarian, Book of the Month, USA Today, and Amazon Editors' pick which the San Francisco Chronicle calls "'Casablanca' if Rick had an artsy bent … powerful"); The Last Train to London (a National Jewish Book Award finalist Kristin Hannah calls "an absolutely fascinating, beautifully rendered story of love, loss, and heroism"); The Wednesday Sisters (...
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