The Typewriter’s Tale

Any Henry James aficionado should recognize the setting (Henry James’s Lamb House in Rye) and major players (including James himself and Edith Wharton) in this imagined story of James’s personal typist in 1907. Twenty-three-year-old Frieda Wroth (a fictional character) comes from modest means and has taken a job as a typewriter for the venerable author (partly to avoid the fate of a life with her respectable but boring suitor in London). Her new career mostly consists of sitting in front of the Remington and mindlessly transcribing James’s words—that is, until Morton Fullerton arrives to visit his friend and mentor. The young and dashingly handsome Fullerton seduces Frieda and asks her to find the packet of his letters to James, which must be hidden somewhere inside Lamb House. Frieda’s promise, combined with a visit from James’s niece Peggy, leads Frieda to experiment with telepathy and contacting those from the beyond. And so begin her communications with Fullerton, transcribed with the Remington in much the same way she takes dictation. There is nothing normal about the James household—from the comings and goings of visitors to the chewing exercises performed nightly by Henry James himself. And Frieda fits right in. Though she isn’t the strongest protagonist and the fiction and nonfiction elements don’t fully mesh, fans of James will find a compelling take on his private life. (Feb.)