The Transcriptionist

February 10, 2014
New York Times veteran Rowland treads familiar ground (familiar to her, at least) in her debut novel, set primarily amid the remote offices of Record, a fictional newspaper. Lena is the newspaper’s sole remaining transcriptionist, her job having been made nearly redundant by technology. Lonely and prone to melancholy, she is haunted both by the words that are edited out of her transcribed stories prior to publication, and by her childhood fear of mountain lions. Both preoccupations come to a head after a blind woman, with whom Lena had a brief encounter, is found mauled to death in the Bronx Zoo’s lion exhibit. Lena’s identification with the dead woman verges on obsession as she researches the woman’s life and death. Rowland’s farcical approach (for example, Lena finds mental safety in periodically donning the biohazard escape hood that she was given by the newspaper) is balanced by the novel’s realistic insights into journalistic integrity, the evolution of contemporary newspaper publishing, and, more broadly, the importance of genuine communication. “Listening,” notes Lena, “helps us recognize our absurdity, our humanity.”

July 1, 2014

Lena, the transcriptionist for a fictional newspaper called The Record, waits in a remote office for calls or recordings to transcribe. She is lonely and isolated and living in a rooming house for women; her one reliable connection is with the pigeon that lives on her office window sill. When she realizes that a blind woman with whom she had brief contact has jumped into the lion's area at the zoo and been killed, it opens Lena's eyes and leads to self-examination and some uncharacteristic behaviors on her part. Former transcriber Rowland expertly covers a lot of ground in this polished and literary first novel, while Xe Sands's narration effortlessly brings the listener into Lena's world. VERDICT For fans of quirky literary fiction. ["Disturbing and powerful; the skillfully drawn Lena may remind some readers of an existentialist hero," read the review of the Algonquin hc, LJ 2/1/14.]--Mary Knapp, Madison P.L., WI

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