book cover of The Typist
 

The Typist

(2010)
A novel by

 
 
Written with the stunning economy of language for which Michael Knight's work has always been praised, The Typist is a rich and powerful work of historical fiction that expertly chronicles both the politics of the Pacific theater of World War II and the personal relationships borne from the tragedies of warfare.

When Francis "Van" Vancleave joins the army in 1944, he expects his term of service to pass uneventfully. His singular talent - typing 95 words per minute - keeps him off the battlefield and in General MacArthur's busy Tokyo headquarters, where his days are filled with paperwork in triplicate and letters of dictation.

But little does Van know that the first year of the occupation will prove far more volatile for him than for the US Army. When he's bunked with a troubled combat veteran cum black marketer and recruited to babysit MacArthur's eight-year-old son, Van is suddenly tangled in the complex - and risky - personal lives of his compatriots. As he brushes shoulders with panpan girls and Communists on the streets of Tokyo, Van struggles to uphold his convictions in the face of unexpected conflict - especially the startling news from his war bride, a revelation that threatens Van with a kind of war wound he never anticipated.

Genre: Literary Fiction

Praise for this book

"I loved The Typist. It is a beautiful portrait of a kind of walking pneumonia of the spirit that seeks and finds its own cure. It is also most impressive because of the setting--in a time far before Knight ever drew breath. It is true imagining at its finest." - Richard Bausch

"The Typist is Knight's best book yet. It reads with a combination of urgency and a quiet, rush-less pace to the novel's slow reveal. There is not a misstep, not a mislaid sentence. I believed and breathed every single word. This book awed me." - Elizabeth Gilbert

"Michael Knight tells the story of generals, war, and occupation through the eyes of a typist who proves himself to be the calm at the center of the storm. The result is this elegant, thoughtful, and resonant novel." - Ann Patchett


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