Typewriter Beach by Meg Waite Clayton

I'm not really sure if this is a fiction novel or a historical fiction novel. There are certainly real people named in it, and historical events, but when I googled Leon Chazan, the only thing that consistently comes up is a summary of this book! I was confused in the beginning about who everyone was and what was actually happening, to be honest. I understand that the author was "unfolding" the details in her own timeline, but I was initially lost and it took me awhile to get into the story. 

There are two time periods: 1957 and 2018. In 1957, a young actress, Isabella Giori, is sent to a cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea. She was placed there by a Hollywood "fixer".  She wants to be the next star in an Alfred Hitchcock movie and her chances seem promising. She met with Hitchcock and his wife and they seemed to like her. But we don't really know why she is at the cottage instead of in Hollywood. Meanwhile, her next-door neighbor is "Leo", who spends his days and nights typing, which bothers Isabella because of the noise of his typing. The reader finds out he is a blacklisted screenwriter who continues to work under the radar. This is the era of McCarthyism. Although I understand what happened in Hollywood during this time, I was confused about people being sent away to secret locations (like Leo) and then either naming people who were communists or refusing to, which meant they were blacklisted. Leo refused to name anyone, so he was blacklisted, and he was living in his Carmel cottage. Since the "fixer" has set Isabella in a cottage and she has a "secret meeting" scheduled, Leo infers that she is in the same boat as he was.

Meanwhile, in 2018, Gemma Chazan, Leo's granddaughter is also a screenwriter. She comes to Carmel because Leo has died and she needs to sell his cottage. Gemma's mother died earlier and she never knew her father or grandmother. Now with Leo gone, she doesn't have any family left. She meets Isabella, and also Sam, who is staying at the cottage that Isabella once stayed in. Sam develops video games and his business partner is Mads (a female). He is staying in the cottage while working on his latest game. To add to the list of characters, there was a poet (Jeffers) who lived in Hawk Tower at Tor House in 1957 that is now deceased. His presence and/or poetry has influenced everyone else in the story.

After I figured out what was going on, and who everyone was, I quite enjoyed the unraveling of this story. There are secrets and relationships past and present that are unveiled to the reader, if not all the characters. It was a satisfying ending.

Wendy's Rating: ****