Typewriter Beach

Clayton (The Postmistress of Paris) delivers an irresistible story of 1950s Hollywood featuring a restless ingénue who befriends a blacklisted screenwriter. It’s 1957 and Isabella Giori has just debuted in a supporting role opposite Janet Leigh. She’s hoping Hitchcock will pick her as his next favorite blonde actress, but the studio, having caught on that she’s pregnant, sequesters her in Carmel, Calif., until she agrees to have an illegal abortion. In Carmel, she meets screenwriter Léon Chazan, who’s out of work due to accusations that he’s a communist. After Léon shares his work in progress for feedback, she’s intrigued to find all the hallmarks of a great Hitchcock film, down to the part she envisions for herself, “the dreamboat of a girl who might be evil or might be good.” A parallel narrative set in 2018 follows the late Léon’s granddaughter, Gemma, an aspiring screenwriter who arrives at his Carmel cottage to prepare it for sale. After meeting aging star Isabella, who still lives next door, Gemma finds a script in her grandfather’s safe that he wrote, which bears striking similarities to a film Isabella was credited with writing. Clayton expertly interweaves Gemma’s, Isabella’s, and Léon’s tales as each attempt to forge their path in a cutthroat industry. Readers will be riveted. Agent: Margaret Riley King, WME. (July)