American Mermaid
Book - 2023 Adult Book / Fiction / General / Langbein, Julia, Fiction / Langbein, Julia 1 On Shelf No requests on this item
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Call Number: Adult Book / Fiction / General / Langbein, Julia, Fiction / Langbein, Julia
On Shelf At: Westgate Branch
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Adult Book / Fiction / General / Langbein, Julia | 4-week checkout | On Shelf |
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"A brilliantly funny and razor-tongued debut which follows a writer lured to Los Angeles to adapt her feminist mermaid novel into a big-budget action film, who believes her heroine has come to life to take revenge for Hollywood's violations. Penelope Schleeman, a consistently broke Connecticut high school teacher, is as surprised as anyone when her sensitive debut novel, "American Mermaid"-the story of a wheelchair-bound scientist named Sylvia who discovers that her withered legs are the vestiges of a powerful tail-becomes a bestseller. Penelope soon finds herself lured to LA by promises of easy money to co-write the "American Mermaid" screenplay for a major studio with a pair of male hacks. As the studio pressures Penelope to change "American Mermaid" from the story of a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clam bra, strange things start to happen. Threats appear in the screenplay draft; siren calls lure people into danger. When Penelope's screenwriting partners try to kill Sylvia off entirely in a bitterly false but cinematic end, matters off the page escalate. Is Penelope losing her mind, or is Sylvia among us? American Mermaid follows a young woman braving a world of casual smiles and ruthless calculation, where she discovers a beating heart in her own fiction--a creature she'll do anything to protect. By turns both a comic and fabulously insightful tale of two female characters in search of truth, love, and self-acceptance as they move between worlds without giving up their voices"-- Provided by publisher.
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PUBLISHED
New York : Doubleday, [2023]
Year Published: 2023
Description: 329 pages ; 25 cm
Language: English
Format: Book
ISBN/STANDARD NUMBER
9780385549677
SUBJECTS
Mermaids -- Fiction.
Women -- Fiction.
Screenwriters -- Fiction.
Humorous fiction.