American Mermaid
A Novel
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3.3 • 18 Ratings
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- $5.99
Publisher Description
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR • "Sublime." —New York Times Book Review
"Brilliantly sharp, funny, and thought-provoking, the gripping story of a woman trying to find her way in our chaotic world." —Madeline Miller, bestselling author of Circe
Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist, eco-warrior novel American Mermaid becomes a best-seller. But when Hollywood insists she convert her fierce, androgynous protagonist into to a teen sex object in a clamshell bra, strange things start to happen. Is Penelope losing her mind, or has her fictional mermaid come to life, enacting revenge against society’s limited view of what a woman can and should be?
American Mermaid follows a young woman braving the casual slights and cruel calculations of a winner-take-all society and discovering a beating heart in her own fiction: a new kind of hero who fights to keep her voice and choose her place. A hilarious story about deep things, American Mermaid asks how far we’ll go to protect the parts of ourselves that are not for sale.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
American Mermaid is both a sly Hollywood satire and a fascinating character study. Penny is a high school English teacher when her first novel becomes a surprise hit. Newly installed in a swank L.A. apartment, she tangles with her cutthroat agent, the bro screenwriters turning her feminist fable into a corny action movie, and a town that sees authors as a minor inconvenience. Debut novelist Julia Langbein had us giggling at the absurdities Penny faces at every turn, but there’s also a suspenseful quality to the story when mysterious changes start appearing in the script. We love how Langbein alternates between Penny’s disorienting ordeals and scenes from her celebrated novel, which both take some deliciously creepy turns. Your book club’s going to love talking about this one.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Langbein's amusing if overstuffed debut novel (after the art book Laugh Lines) splices together the stories of a mermaid confined to land and a novelist trying to make it in Hollywood. Penelope Schleeman moves from Connecticut to L.A. to cowrite the screenplay for her novel, also called American Mermaid, a job she shares with two boorish pros who discard most of what makes the novel matter to her. She attends one drunken party after another, shooting rats at one and nearly drowning at another, while dispensing mordant one-liners about Tinsel Town (interns are "mechanically breezy"; her Century City high-rise is a "fifty-shelved glass coffin"). Her story is interlaced with long chapters from her novel, a feminist thriller in which asexual mermaid Sylvia Granger uses a wheelchair after her tail has been split into two so her adoptive parents can conceal her identity. At 24, Sylvia tries to end her life by launching herself into the sea, but instead of dying, she discovers her mermaid powers, and proceeds to take revenge on her father. Though Sylvia's story mirrors that of Penny, who also holds a grudge against her wealthy father, the links between Hollywood satire and earnest sci-fi tale are generally weak. Still, the voice-driven narration makes Penelope a companionable protagonist. Though it doesn't all hang together, it has its charms.
