I first met the typing lady in a library. "Met" is not the right word. Let's say I noticed her, became aware of her presence, caught sight of her out of the corner of my eye.
Leafblower. It's a lovely word, really.
Summary: The Typing Lady and Other Fictions is a short story collection by Ruth Ozeki. There are twelve stories in this collection each with the characters standing at a threshold of their life. "The Typing Lady is an electrifying meditation on the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we abandon, and the stories we become. Threaded with the tactile ephemera of writing—typewriters, letters, manuscripts, and disappearing ink—the book reveals how we record ourselves in language, and how language, over time, records us in return." (Storygraph)
My thoughts: I am a Ruth Ozeki fan. Her book A Tale for the Time Being is one of my favorite books. It is so complex and it just about blows my mind. She is a Zen Buddhist Priest and all of her books and stories bring a different awareness to them that is missing in other books. This collection of stories is both clever and funny. Each story focuses on a character (or two) who is at a threshold in their life, wondering where they should go next. For example, the story "Leafblower" is about a girl who is trying to decide what to do with her life but in the meantime she is tasked with taking care of a woman who is slowly slipping into dementia. In the last story, "The Problem of the Body", a grandmother is trying to figure out how to help her granddaughter. All of the characters are complex and interesting, fully fleshed-out. I loved many of the stories and liked all the others.
If you think you'd like to read short stories but don't want to wallow in overly long ones, or read a collection of some good and other bad stories, this would be a great place to start. I liked all the stories and none were overly long. My rating 4.5 stars.
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