Striking the Right Keys. – The Chocolate Lady’s Book Review Blog
Book Review for “The Typing Lady” by Ruth Ozeki.
Summary: “In this spirited and emotionally resonant collection, award-winning novelist Ruth Ozeki turns her singular gaze to the short story, exploring childhood ambition, youthful desire, midlife reinvention, and the unsparing clarity of old age. With her distinctive blend of wit, warmth, and deep humanity, she brings us twelve richly imagined stories of characters standing at life’s thresholds—grappling with faded ideals, evolving identities, and the inevitable compromises that shape a life. A college student falls for her professor and learns to transmute longing into language. A disquieted husband watches with tenderness and unease as the ghost of his wife’s ambition roams the woods outside their home. A long-deceased Beat poet hijacks the mind of a young publishing assistant during a sales meeting, railing against the state of modern literature. A curious grandmother creates a fake online dating profile to spy on her granddaughter’s romantic life—and sets in motion a deception she can’t control. Spanning eras and geographies—from a New England college town in the 1970s to downtown Manhattan in the 1990s to a moss-covered Pacific Northwest island during the early pandemic—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.”
Age: Adult; Genres: Literary, Fiction; Settings: Era/s: Multiple; Location/s: USA and Canada; Other Categories: Short Stories, Collection, Writing, Writers, Women, LGBTQIA+, Romance, Coming-of-Age.
Although I haven’t read all of Ozeki’s books, I fell in love with her writing with her novel “A Tale for the Time Being” which is still high on my “best of the best” lists, and a book that will stick with me for many more years, for sure. So, I’ve been stalking her new works (to the best of my ability) ever since. When I saw this one and tried to get the ARC, but failed, I went out and pre-ordered it, even though I had to buy the hardcover version. But because I’m such a lover of a good short story, I thought I’d see how Ozeki fared with this shorter format. Especially because I know her Buddhist beliefs are so fascinating to me.
Now, don’t get me wrong, but I think I prefer her longer form works. This isn’t to say that these aren’t good stories, because they are. In fact, the titular one was particularly interesting. The only way I can describe it is that it reminded me of an M.C. Esher drawing, where things seem unaligned, and yet make up a complete picture that boggles the mind, and tests you to see if you can make it make sense. Being confused by this isn’t a bad thing, because if I recall correctly, the main character here – the typing lady – showed up in her novel “The Book of Form and Emptiness.” She was an enigma there, and she is again cast in that role in this story, winding through the background, unidentified, and yet very prominent. See what I mean?
Anyway, I found a couple of these stories were a touch too literal for my taste, which again might sound strange, but you come to expect certain things from certain authors. But overall, they seem to all have a bit of an ephemeral feel to them, which works well with the short story format. We glimpse into the lives of these ordinary, yet slightly quirky people, to get a snapshot of a part of their lives that might otherwise have been overlooked. It also allows for a little bit of spiritual, almost magical, intrusion from people no longer alive into the worlds of these very much flesh and blood characters. Again, that didn’t bother me here, because they weren’t ghosts, and were easily explained as fleeting bits of the characters’ imaginations coming to the fore.
All that said, while I enjoyed these stories very much, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t reread them (something I almost never do) in case I missed something. You see, while these stories are really beautifully written (as always), there was a certain lack of emotional connection between them and me as a reader, which prevents me from giving these top scores. Still, I can truly recommend them, and say that they’re easily worthy of 4.5/5 stars, mostly because Ozeki builds these stories to be a bit on the vague side, and I prefer to be encouraged to think about a short story after it is finished, rather than have everything tied up with a big bow. Not for everyone, but certainly, they were for me!
The Canongate Books release date for “The Typeing Lady and Other Fictions” by Ruth Ozeki was June 2, 2026. This book is available (via the following affiliate links) from Amazon, Blackwell’s (prices include international shipping), TGJones (formerly WHSmith), Waterstones, Kobo (US, Canada, Australia), Booksamillion, iTunes (iBooks and audiobooks), new or used from Alibris, or Awesome Books (not an affiliate link), as well as from Bookshop.org and UK.Bookshop (to support independent bookshops).
This novel qualifies for the following reading challenges: New Release Challenge (#30), Historical Fiction Reading Challenge (#22), Bookish Books (#6), 20 Books of Summer (#15).
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