#ReadThis @penguinrandom #AmericanMermaid by Julia Langbein
Whom You Know is named after Peachy's tenth grade English class at Miss Porter's School, which of course is in Connecticut, and we are predisposed to like English teachers, namely Rennie McQuilkin. And you know with her Miraclesuit, Peachy is most obviously an American Mermaid.
So, it takes one to know one!
American Mermaid is the quintessential beach read: it's fun, light and entertaining. We think it would appeal to women more than men, and to younger rather than older. The text threads in the book are most definitely a modern way of writing. The author has a way with words and she excels in uniquely creative descriptions throughout.
The title is obviously evocative of Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks in SPLASH, but the book itself is a novel: the story of a writer with high hopes of making it big in tinsel town. There is a huge back and forth between her real life and the life of the mermaid in the book, and it's clearly delineated. This book is current and belongs in 2023.
If you're a writer yourself, you'll find it particularly relatable and entertaining! Writers usually entertain others, so they need to be entertained too.
Finally, we were pleased to see this book is made in the USA.
If you are in the winter doldrums, speed up the season and crack this open now! You can read it again at the beach....
Penguin Random House Tells Us:
Adaptation meets The Day of the Dolphin meets Hacks in AMERICAN MERMAID (Doubleday; on-sale March 21, 2023), a brilliantly funny, wildly high-concept debut about a writer lured to Los Angeles to adapt her own feminist mermaid novel into a big-budget action film, who believes her fictional heroine has come to life to take revenge for Hollywood's violations.
High school English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when her feminist novel about a wheelchair-bound scientist who discovers she was actually born a mermaid becomes a surprise internet sensation and runaway bestseller. Lured by the promise of a big payday, she quits teaching and moves to L.A. to turn the novel into an action-heavy blockbuster alongside a pair of studio hacks. But as she’s pressured to change her main character from a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clamshell bra, strange things start to happen. Threats begin to appear in the script; siren calls lure Penelope’s co-writers into danger; a riptide nearly drowns her at a Malibu beach party. Is Penelope losing her mind? Or has her heroine come to life to control her story in a world intent on either selling out or silencing those who don’t fit in?
Perfect for readers of Bonnie Garmus’s Lessons in Chemistry, Alissa Nutting’s Made for Love, and Melissa Broder’s The Pisces and fans of Andrew Sean Greer, Tom Perrotta, and Sloane Crosley, AMERICAN MERMAID is a hilarious and affecting send-up of Hollywood, in which we see a young woman braving the casual slights and cruel calculations of a ruthless industry town; a fabulous novel-within-a-novel, with its own brilliant reinterpretation of mermaid mythology, a timely climate change subplot, and a beating heart in its fictional mermaid heroine; and a wry observation of millennial life a la Sally Rooney told with the heart and humor of Kevin Wilson and Kristen Arnett. Ultimately, it’s an insightful tale of two young women in search of self-acceptance as they negotiate their places in worlds hell-bent on taking their voices away.
A sketch and standup comedian for many years (who is legitimately laugh-out-loud funny on the page), Julia Langbein was the author of the viral comedy blog The Bruni Digest from 2003-2007, in which she reviewed New York Times critic Frank Bruni’s weekly restaurant reviews. She now holds a doctorate in Art History and is the author of a non-fiction book about comic art criticism (Laugh Lines). She has written about food, art, and travel for Gourmet, Eater, Salon, Freize, and other publications. A native of Chicago, she is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Trinity College Dublin and lives outside of Paris with her family.
