Carey Wallace's The Blind Contessa's New Machine is a fantastical fairy tale woven from true historical facts about the very prosaic invention of the world's first typewriter. But Wallace has invented a fantasyland that nearly touches magic realism.
This is one of those books that sketches the characters so lightly, yet so deftly that you don't realize how three-dimentional they are until you're more than half-way through. I was not impressed with the love story aspect, but it did lend a bit of drama to the book.
The dreams and descriptions --crisp, concise, and evocative-- are what make the writing a treat.
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