02741cam a2200373 i 4500 1165046962 TxAuBib 20230508120000.0 220725s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2022021818 9780385549677 hardcover 0385549679 hardcover 9780593470145 paperback 0593470141 paperback (OCoLC)1333921284 DLC eng rda DLC OCLCF LJW INR JVK GL4 IMT YDX VP@ UOK TxAuBib rda Langbein, Julia, (Art historian), author. American mermaid : a novel / Julia Langbein. First edition. New York : Doubleday, [2023] ©2023. 329 pages ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier "A brilliantly funny and razor-tongued debut which 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. Penelope Schleeman, a consistently broke Connecticut high school teacher, is as surprised as anyone when her sensitive debut novel, "American Mermaid" -- the story of a wheelchair-bound scientist named Sylvia who discovers that her withered legs are the vestiges of a powerful tail -- becomes a bestseller. Penelope soon finds herself lured to LA by promises of easy money to co-write the "American Mermaid" screenplay for a major studio with a pair of male hacks. As the studio pressures Penelope to change "American Mermaid" from the story of a fierce, androgynous eco-warrior to a teen sex object in a clam bra, strange things start to happen. Threats appear in the screenplay draft; siren calls lure people into danger. When Penelope's screenwriting partners try to kill Sylvia off entirely in a bitterly false but cinematic end, matters off the page escalate. Is Penelope losing her mind, or is Sylvia among us? American Mermaid follows a young woman braving a world of casual smiles and ruthless calculation, where she discovers a beating heart in her own fiction -- a creature she'll do anything to protect. By turns both a comic and fabulously insightful tale of two female characters in search of truth, love, and self-acceptance as they move between worlds without giving up their voices"-- Provided by publisher. 20230511. Mermaids Fiction. Women Fiction. Screenwriters Fiction. Los Angeles (Calif) Fiction. Humorous fiction. TXKIP