Typewriter Beach

A Washington Post 5 for Summer
A Los Angeles Times 10 for a Beach Day
A Publishers Weekly Summer Read: "Irresistible.” (PW starred)
A Library Reads Top 10: "Sure to be a big summer hit.” (LJ starred)


Set in Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, an unforgettable story of the unlikely friendship between an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress hoping to be Alfred Hitchcock's new star — from the internationally bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris and The Last Train to London,

1957. Isabella Giori is ten months into a standard seven-year studio contract when she auditions with Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio’s “fixer” in a tiny Carmel cottage.

Léon Chazan, next door, is annoyed as hell when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won’t be able to sell, because he’s been blacklisted. But soon, they’re in his roadster, speeding down the fog-shrouded Big Sur coast.

2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe full of secrets—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was, and whether she can live up to his name.

In graceful prose and with an intimate understanding of human nature, Meg Waite Clayton captures the joys and frustrations of being a writer, being a woman, being a star, and being in love. Typewriter Beach is the story of two women separated by generations—a tale of ideas and ideals, passion and persistence, creativity, politics, and family. View Less