Woman with a blue pencil - BookWyrm.World

191 pages

English language

Published 2015

ISBN:: 978-1-63388-088-7
OCLC Number:: 903634798

(1 review)

"On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come.... Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear. Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes - the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised. Behind …

"On the eve of Pearl Harbor, Sam Sumida, a Japanese-American academic, has been thrust into the role of amateur P.I., investigating his wife's murder, which has been largely ignored by the LAPD. Grief stricken by her loss, disoriented by his ill-prepared change of occupation, the worst is yet to come.... Sam discovers that, inexplicably, he has become not only unrecognizable to his former acquaintances but that all signs of his existence (including even the murder he's investigating) have been erased. Unaware that he is a discarded, fictional creation, he resumes his investigation in a world now characterized not only by his own sense of isolation but by wartime fear. Meantime, Sam's story is interspersed with chapters from a pulp spy novel that features an L.A.-based Korean P.I. with jingoistic and anti-Japanese, post December 7th attitudes - the revised, politically and commercially viable character for whom Sumida has been excised. Behind it all is the ambitious, 20-year-old Nisei author who has made the changes, despite the relocation of himself and his family to a Japanese internment camp. And, looming above, is his book editor in New York, who serves as both muse and manipulator to the young author--the woman with the blue pencil, a new kind of femme fatale"--

2 editions

kerry reviewed Woman with a blue pencil by Gordon McAlpine

Review of 'Woman with a blue pencil' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This novel is a very clever addition to the hard-boiled detective genre. Its parallel stories are set in Los Angeles in 1941-42, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath figure in all of them. In the first plotline, Japanese-American Sam Sumida searches for information about his wife's murder. In the second, Korean-American Jimmy Park is recruited to serve on a secret government mission to infiltrate a Japanese spy ring.

The third "story" bridges the first two. We find out that Sam Sumida's story was written by a Japanese-American author, Takumi Sato. Maxine Wakefield, Sato's editor, tells him that a book written by a Japanese-American with a Japanese-American protagonist will not sell in the country's anti-Japanese political climate. (I read this book shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the subsequent anti-[fill in the blank] rhetoric was chillingly familiar.) Wielding her "blue pencil," Wakefield suggests major revisions, …

This novel is a very clever addition to the hard-boiled detective genre. Its parallel stories are set in Los Angeles in 1941-42, and the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath figure in all of them. In the first plotline, Japanese-American Sam Sumida searches for information about his wife's murder. In the second, Korean-American Jimmy Park is recruited to serve on a secret government mission to infiltrate a Japanese spy ring.

The third "story" bridges the first two. We find out that Sam Sumida's story was written by a Japanese-American author, Takumi Sato. Maxine Wakefield, Sato's editor, tells him that a book written by a Japanese-American with a Japanese-American protagonist will not sell in the country's anti-Japanese political climate. (I read this book shortly after the terrorist attacks in Paris, and the subsequent anti-[fill in the blank] rhetoric was chillingly familiar.) Wielding her "blue pencil," Wakefield suggests major revisions, and Park's story, written by "William Thorne," is the result.

Sato, however, continues to write Sumida's story and keeps this manuscript to himself, while submitting Park's story to Wakefield for edits even as he is interned and later enlists in the army. The joy of Woman with a Blue Pencil comes in seeing how Sumida's and Park's stories merge.

The "real" author, Gordon McAlpine, gives us authentic glimpses of the period and place. Scenes take place at real locations (The Pike in Long Beach, Wilson High School in Long Beach, White Point in San Pedro, and Little Tokyo near downtown L.A.) that made me feel like he lives in the area.

As fun as this book was, I have to nitpick about some of the writing, which at times was less than smooth. I was confused by a plot point in which Japanese characters were translated into English words, which were then scrambled to provide a clue. Luckily for the protagonists, they happened upon the exact, precise English words to be used--no synonyms here, thank you very much. There were also some typos (an unclosed paren; the use of "discreet" rather than "discrete"). Where was the editor's blue pencil?

Subjects

Private investigators
Murder
Investigation
Fiction