Set in Carmel-by-the-Sea and in 1950s Hollywood—in the days of the studio system and McCarthy-era scaremongering about an America “riddled with communists and homosexuals”—Typewriter Beach is the unforgettable story of an 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 charming little Carmel-by-the-Sea cottage for a secret rendezvous. There, she is awoken by the clack and ding of a typewriter at the cottage 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. But soon he’s speeding down the fog-shrouded Carmel-San Simeon highway, headed for the isolated cliffs of Big Sur, with her in the passenger seat.
2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe with a World War II-era French passport, an old camera with film still in it, two movie scripts, and a writing Oscar that is not in her grandfather’s name—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was.
In its exploration of Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Typewriter Beach is a heartwarming tale of long-buried secrets; sisterhood and sexism; the importance of free speech, story, and name; and what it means to be family.
Genre: General Fiction
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 charming little Carmel-by-the-Sea cottage for a secret rendezvous. There, she is awoken by the clack and ding of a typewriter at the cottage 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. But soon he’s speeding down the fog-shrouded Carmel-San Simeon highway, headed for the isolated cliffs of Big Sur, with her in the passenger seat.
2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe with a World War II-era French passport, an old camera with film still in it, two movie scripts, and a writing Oscar that is not in her grandfather’s name—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was.
In its exploration of Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Typewriter Beach is a heartwarming tale of long-buried secrets; sisterhood and sexism; the importance of free speech, story, and name; and what it means to be family.
Genre: General Fiction
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