Book of the Week: The Typist
Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale today, the paperback version of the quiet, heartbreaking sleeper novel:
by Michael Knight
The story only a novelist could think up: Van, the fastest U.S. Army typist in the occupied nation of post–World War II Japan, becomes the babysitter to the young son of General MacArthur.
The blurb says it all: "This book awed me." — Elizabeth Gilbert
The words that capture recovering Hiroshima, circa 1947: "A scrap of metal. A hunk of concrete. A man alone. Difficult to imagine that anything had ever existed in this place until you noticed the scorched and gutted hulks of buildings big enough to survive the blast rising like weird barnacles on the landscape."
The astonishing event that takes place in that same landscape: A football game, the Tokyo Giants versus the Hiroshima Bears.
The reason to read: Quirky, must-be-true historical details pop up throughout the book, but the straightforward narrator makes us question difficult, universal concerns, like, How can you possibly take care of the people you love who seem to be unable to love even themselves?
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