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Woman with a Blue Pencil

Book Cover
Average Rating
Publisher:
Seventh Street Books
Pub. Date:
2015
Language:
English
Description
"Woman with a Blue Pencil is a brilliantly structured labyrinth of a novel—something of an enigma wrapped in a mystery, postmodernist in its experimental bravado and yet satisfyingly well-grounded in the Los Angeles of its World War II era. Gordon McAlpine has imagined a totally unique work of 'mystery' fiction—one that Kafka, Borges, and Nabokov, as well as Dashiell Hammett, would have appreciated."

JOYCE CAROL OATES
What becomes of a character cut from a writer's working manuscript?

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come, Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear.
Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes – the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised.
Behind it all is the ambitious, 20-year-old Nisei author who has made the changes, despite the relocation of himself and his family to a Japanese internment camp. And, looming above, is his book editor in New York, who serves as both muse and manipulator to the young author—the woman with the blue pencil, a new kind of femme fatale.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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ISBN:
9781633880894
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Grouping Information

Grouped Work ID21ff948b-4e43-57be-5e47-ee4891b64e0e
Grouping Titlewoman with a blue pencil
Grouping Authorgordon mcalpine
Grouping Categorybook
Grouping LanguageEnglish (eng)
Last Grouping Update2023-11-28 04:07:45AM
Last Indexed2023-11-28 04:42:58AM

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McAlpine, Gordon
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Online OverDrive Collection
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display_description
"Woman with a Blue Pencil is a brilliantly structured labyrinth of a novel—something of an enigma wrapped in a mystery, postmodernist in its experimental bravado and yet satisfyingly well-grounded in the Los Angeles of its World War II era. Gordon McAlpine has imagined a totally unique work of 'mystery' fiction—one that Kafka, Borges, and Nabokov, as well as Dashiell Hammett, would have appreciated."

JOYCE CAROL OATES
What becomes of a character cut from a writer's working manuscript?

On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come, Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear.
Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes – the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised.
Behind it all is the ambitious, 20-year-old Nisei author who has made the changes, despite the relocation of himself and his family to a Japanese internment camp. And, looming above, is his book editor in New York, who serves as both muse and manipulator to the young author—the woman with the blue pencil, a new kind of femme fatale.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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isbn
9781633880894
last_indexed
2023-11-28T09:42:58.680Z
lexile_score
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literary_form
Fiction
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Fiction
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Online OverDrive
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Anne Arundel County Public Library Online
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Online OverDrive Collection
primary_isbn
9781633880894
publishDate
2015
publisher
Seventh Street Books
recordtype
grouped_work
title_display
Woman with a Blue Pencil
title_full
Woman with a Blue Pencil
title_short
Woman with a Blue Pencil
topic_facet
Fiction
Historical Fiction
Mystery

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