A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR - A brilliantly funny debut novel
that follows a writer lured to Los Angeles to adapt her feminist mermaid
novel into a big-budget action film, who believes her heroine has come
to life to take revenge for Hollywood's violations.
"Brilliantly sharp, funny, and thought-provoking, the gripping story
of a woman trying to find her way in our chaotic world." --Madeline
Miller, bestselling author of Circe
Broke English teacher Penelope Schleeman is as surprised as anyone when
her feminist novel American Mermaid becomes a best-seller. Lured by
the promise of a big payday, she quits teaching and moves to L.A. to
turn the novel into an action flick with the help of some 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 appear in the screenplay; siren calls
lure Penelope's co-writers into danger. Is Penelope losing her mind, or
has her mermaid come to life, enacting revenge for Hollywood's
violations?
American Mermaid follows a young woman braving the casual slights and
cruel calculations of a ruthless industry town, where she discovers a
beating heart in her own fiction, a mermaid who will fight to move
between worlds without giving up her voice. A hilarious story about
deep things, American Mermaid asks how far we'll go to protect the
parts of ourselves that are not for sale.
