Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns
Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns
Thanks to Sarah Schoof of St. Martin’s Press, I am giving away one print copy of Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns.
Description of Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns
Combining fact with fiction, Heyns recreates the society in the little town of Rye around the celebrated author Henry James, ‘the Master’, as seen through the cool gaze of his typist, Frieda Wroth. Admiring of the great author, she nevertheless feels marginalised and under-valued, a mere typewriter, amidst the stolid servants and chattering guests. But when the dashing Morton Fullerton comes to visit, Frieda finds herself at the centre of an intrigue every bit as engrossing as the novels she types every day, bringing her into conflict with the flamboyant Edith Wharton, and compromising her loyalty to her employer.
The urbane, long-winded Henry James, the suave, witty Morton Fullerton and the voracious, larger-than life Edith Wharton: caught in a triangle of which she only gradually comes to understand the nature, Frieda tries to obey the Master’s dictum: ‘Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to.’ But living, she finds, exacts a price: it takes place at the expense of other lives.
Michiel Heyns here uses his extensive knowledge of Henry James and his times as basis for a fiction in which the comic and the tragic are inextricably interwoven. Carefully researched and yet abundantly inventive, The Typewriter’s Tale brings to life a man and a period that have recently been the subject of renewed interest worldwide.
Praise for Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns
“Fascinating….Literary history blends masterfully with a plot of intrigue in this slim and delightful novel.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Highly creative.…Faithfully re-created real-life individuals mix well with authentically drawn fictitious ones.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Anyone who loves Henry James will adore this…Heyns has given us something playful as well as thought-provoking.” – The Independent (UK)
About Michiel Heyns
MICHIEL HEYNS is Professor Emeritus in English at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Author of numerous academic works and radio adaptations of Henry James’s and Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels, Heyns wrote the chapter on Henry James for the Cambridge Companion to English Novelists.
He is winner of the Thomas Pringle Award for journalism 2007, and the Sol Plaatje Award for translation, 2008 and was winner of the Sunday Times Fiction Award 2012 for his novel Lost Ground.
Giveaway of Typewriter’s Tale by Michiel Heyns
This giveaway is open to Canada and the U.S. only and ends on March 17, 2017 midnight pacific time. Entries are accepted via Rafflecopter only.
