Debut novelist celebrates launch in Brooklyn
Set in 1920s Manhattan, Suzanne Rindell’s much anticipated debut novel “The Other Typist” follows Rose Baker, a typist in a New York City Police Department precinct on the Lower East Side. In this enchanting, sometimes eerie story, Rose struggles to assert her identity as a woman torn between her role in the interrogation room – where, through her recordings of crimes, she has the power to determine men’s fates – and her role outside the interrogation room – where she is constantly reminded that she is of the weaker sex, subjecting to demands to file papers and make coffee.
When Odalie, a glamorous woman, joins Rose’s office, Rose becomes captivated by her new colleague. The two women juggle their professional and personal lives, navigating the shifting spaces that women occupy in both settings, and Rose struggles to cope with the unhealthy obsession she develops with Odalie.
At a pre-pub party at Manhattan’s Algonquin Round Table, Rindell read from her novel, which will be released on May 7. She introduced her book with a Dorothy Parker quote that was relevant to both the novel and the venue (which originated as a meeting spot for such literary figures as Parker and Robert E. Sherwood): “I wish I could drink like a lady / I can take one or two at the most / Three and I’m under the table / Four and I’m under the host.”