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    The Transcriptionist
    The Transcriptionist
    The Transcriptionist
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Transcriptionist

    Written by Amy Rowland

    Narrated by Xe Sands

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Lena, the transcriptionist, sits alone in a room far away from the hum of the newsroom that is the heart of the Record, the big city newspaper for which she works. For years, she has been the ever-present link for reporters calling in stories from around the world. Hooked up to a machine that turns spoken words to print, Lena is the vein that connects the organs of the paper. She is loyal, she is unquestioning, yet technology is dictating that her days there are numbered.When she reads a shocking piece in the paper about a Jane Doe mauled to death by a lion, she recognizes the woman in the picture. They had met on a bus just a few days before. Obsessed with understanding what caused the woman to deliberately climb into the lion's den, Lena begins a campaign for truth that will destroy the Record's complacency and shake the venerable institution to its very foundation. In doing so she also recovers a life-her own.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateMay 13, 2014
    ISBN9781622313426
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    Reviews for The Transcriptionist

    3.5/5

    170 ratings51 reviews

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    • 3/5
      The protagonist, Lena, works alone in her small office in a shabby old newspaper building. Although she doesn't censor news, she does have an influence on her stories through style. In this respect she is reminiscent of Winston Smith from George Orwell's 1984. Rowland's story suggests the end of newspapers as we know them is not far off, and that shady, unscrupulous types are emerging. The point of Lena's interest in Arlene's fate was puzzling. This preoccupation and some implausible scenes made the whole unconvincing. However, there were some good descriptive scenes of New York that gave the story the lift it needed. It seems Rowland has remembered her high school literature courses and has thrown an abundance of literary knowledge, metaphors and quotes into this, her first book. And, as this was an ARC, there may be some editing still to be done. If the author gets around to a second novel it will probably display smoother expression.
    • 2/5
      Amy Rowland?s debut novel is the story of Lena, a woman who replaced the religion of her youth with graduate school, and ?book[s] she read instead of enjoyed,? in an attempt to ensconce herself in an ivory tower and keep the world at bay. That didn't work out for her. So, when the reader meets up with her, she is a transcriptionist, and instead of using whole books to distance herself from the world, she does it with lines of text?some from the work she must transcribe about bombs in Baghdad or hoarders in New York City, some of which are snippets of poems, novels, or long dead philosophers. When she transcribes the news of a blind woman?s strange death (mauled to death by lions after swimming the moat and entering their compound in the Bronx Zoo) and recognizes her as a seatmate on a bus a few days prior, she sets out to learn about this mysterious woman and why she was driven to do what she did. The novel reminded me quite strongly of The Elegance of a Hedgehog. But, where that novel had Renee, the concierge who would sneak home caviar and Tolstoy in her shopping bag, cleverly hidden under the more mundane old potatoes and low-brow magazines, we have Lena. Lena is a transcriptionist, an occupation (much like a concierge) that lends itself to being overlooked. Hidden in plain sight in a grey room on the 11th floor of the offices of the Record, the city?s greatest newspaper, Lena is a set of ears attached to transcriptionist fingers, nimbly typing out the news all the while quoting Wittgenstein in her head. ?You went to graduate school?? a reporter by the name of Russell once asked her incredulously. It is not something you might expect of a transcriptionist. This reporter, by the way, is one of the two people in the building who call her by her name (?and congratulates himself by repeating it often.?) It is a pity that her name is not Carol, though. Another somewhat ham-fisted attempt to tell the reader that the alienation is strong in this one. Also, there is a patently bizarre episode where Lena transcribes while wearing a biohazard escape hood conveniently given to her by the newspaper, just in case. Yes, Rowland is showing, not telling, but these constant cues to think about the Main Theme ? get somewhat annoying after a time. Another think I did not like about the novel was that it tried to do too much. Along with the aforementioned theme of alienation (did I mention the door handle to her office breaks, so that in order for anyone to get in, they have to contort themselves into human doorhandles, and most people don?t bother?), it throws in discussions about the loss that comes with increasing reliance on digitalization of media and digital as opposed to analog or human helps, about the death of print, the death of journalism, the ethics of reporting? All of these questions and themes seem out of joint with one another, and serve to fragment rather than unify the novel. A question of ethics blows up in the last handful of pages of the work, serving little purpose in my mind, except to introduce the problems of the slippage of the integrity of the news profession in modern times. And with that done, the novel ends.
    • 3/5
      I was a bit disappointed. I thought there would be more to it at the end. Reading the synopsis, it sounded mysterious. But that wasn't the case.At first glance this novel seems to be a social commentary on the state of media. Instead it seems like a story about a woman going through a mid-life crises in her thirties. I wanted to yell at her to 'suck it up' in almost every chapter.The book is written well enough and I think deserves three stars for that but the supposed point of the book (if I do have the point of the book) is almost too subtle. Not to mention monotonous. For a more out there novel about the media I would recommend The Circle over this one. Though The Circle hits you over the head with its bluntness crudity, at least the reader is not left going 'huh'? At least there's no question that you know what the point is with The Circle.
    • 3/5
      It definitely had potential and had a good start, but I think it got lost along the way. The story with the blind woman didn't quite connect with the reporter and there was a bit of a disconnect. There were quite a few elements in the plot that seemed to be isolated from each other and I think the author could have a done a better job in making them more relevant. The book sort of ended of me and I was left thinking, so what?
    • 3/5
      I liked it enough to finish it. I got a tad lost in the end, but then I got back on course. Pretty okay book.
    • 4/5
      A literary novel about a transcriptionist for a major New York City newspaper. Comfortable in her repetitive life, Lena gets an awakening one day when she transcribes a story about a woman mauled by lions at the zoo. The novel is mesmerizing and beautifully written. Lena's awakening is powerful and relatable.
    • 3/5
      This started as a quiet story about a lonely transcriptionist at a newspaper, and I thought I might enjoy it. But she seemed to come a little unglued, and as I got concerned for her, I liked the book less.
    • 5/5
      It took me a while to pick up The Transcriptionist after I got it through Early Reviewers, but once I got it I couldn't put it down. If you describe the plot it doesn't necessarily sound that interesting: a transcriptionist at the New York Times (it's called something else, but it's the Times) becomes fascinated by the death of a blind woman who was killed by lions after bringing into their enclosure at the zoo. But it is great, it's all in the writing. You get completely drawn into the main character's world. I know this book will stick with me.
    • 3/5
      Well-written and thought-provoking story. I enjoyed it until I realized a huge part of it is a pretty blatant rip of Jose Saramago's 'All the Names.'
    • 2/5
      I received this book through LibraryThing’s Early Reviewers. Originally when I read the description I thought this would be an interesting mystery that would hold my attention. I looked forward to reading this book. Honestly this book was not what I thought it would be. I found the story to bit a bit boring at times and it was hard for it to hold my attention. The story was just not as intriguing as I had hoped it would be, which lead to some disappointment on my part. Give this book a try, you might enjoy it more than I did.
    • 4/5
      A delightful read whose descriptions were at times almost lyrical. The story highlights a world that is being lost to change and the players involved. Told through the perspective of the transcriptionist the story is full of her thoughts, emotions and ability to process her own situation through the tools of her trade. The borders between her profession and herself blur as she loses herself to the stories she transcribes. These metaphors are at times overplayed but overall the story is worth the escape.
    • 4/5
      I received a copy of this from LibrayThing for Review. It had be enthralled...for a little while. But at some point it lost its way and became convoluted.
    • 4/5
      Lena, works as the sole remaining transcriptionist of taped interviews and called-in stories at the city’s largest newspaper. One day, while taking the bus to work, a blind fellow commuter strikes up a conversation with her about books, reads her palm, and manages to utter the auspicious, poetic prognostication, “I’m looking inside your cage . . . I see words,” before Lena gets off the bus. After the woman shows up in a particularly gruesome news story (suicide by lion mauling in Central Park), Lena, who is haunted by memories of a mountain lion from her youth, becomes obsessed with the woman’s life, even violating journalistic ethics to get information. In this book, the journey to find information is more significant than the information itself. Summary Boston GlobeDebut novel THE TRANSCRIPTIONIST is not a straightforward read. It's short enough to be read in a sitting but I wouldn't suggest doing that. Ms Rowland has pared description and dialogue to the bone, relying on telling details (the colour of the walls in the transcription room says it all) to set the scene for her fable. Lena practically lives at work in her office on the top floor of the Record building. Living her life second hand through the news stories phoned in from around the world, Lena even thinks in other people's words: esoteric quotations from prose and poetry come faster to her than her own thoughts. Like Rapunzel in her tower, Lena experiences life through another; the phone cord instead of long hair her only true connection to the outside world.. Tragedy touches Lena personally when a woman she met on the bus is found mauled in Central Park's lion enclosure. Obsessively identifying with her, Lena has to know why this woman committed suicide. She leaves her tower to get the answer and in so doing, comes to terms with her own "lion".The lion motif--which I read as the wildness or chaos that seethes just below the veneer of civilization--surfaces just enough to intrigue the reader. The New York Central Library's lions symbolize humanity's hubris: words tame the wildness, we think. But do they? Do we think that, like Adam, we exercise dominion over creation by "naming" it? Are we fooling ourselves that borrowed sayings can substitute for lived experience? THE TRANSCRIPTIONIST makes you dig deep.8 out of 10 Highly recommended to readers who want to stop and reflect on life's big questions.
    • 4/5
      This is the story of Lena, the transcriptionist for a major newspaper. It is a lonely and almost obsolete job and Lena is a bit odd quoting obscure lines from literature. A story of a woman who crawled into a lion's cage in a zoo starts Lena's journey to find out about Arlene who she happened to meet on a bus. This book is about language and newspaper and a job that is lonely and isolated. Lena is a strange main character but I ended up liking her. It's a quiet book, and it took me a while to get invested in it. However, I liked Lena's quotes and thoughts so I would recommend it. I'm interested in seeing more from this author.
    • 3/5
      this is the story of Lena, the transcriptionist for a major newspaper. It is a lonely job and Lena is a bit odd quoting obscure lines of dialogue. A story of a woman who crawled into a lion's cage in a zoo starts Lena's journey to find out about Arlene who she happened to meet on a bus. This book is about language and newspaper and a job that is lonely and isolated. I did like Lena even though she was a strange character and I did enjoy this book
    • 3/5
      I was a bit disappointed. I thought there would be more to it at the end. Reading the synopsis, it sounded mysterious. But that wasn't the case.At first glance this novel seems to be a social commentary on the state of media. Instead it seems like a story about a woman going through a mid-life crises in her thirties. I wanted to yell at her to 'suck it up' in almost every chapter.The book is written well enough and I think deserves three stars for that but the supposed point of the book (if I do have the point of the book) is almost too subtle. Not to mention monotonous. For a more out there novel about the media I would recommend The Circle over this one. Though The Circle hits you over the head with its bluntness crudity, at least the reader is not left going 'huh'? At least there's no question that you know what the point is with The Circle.
    • 3/5
      This book probably had some excellent points about journalism but they become lost in the round about changes in the narrative. June 2014
    • 4/5
      What an unexpectedly charming book. Written cleanly but with great style, "The Transcriptionist" succeeds greatly as a fist novel. Lovely use of metaphor and replete with literary references - neither of which seem heavy-handed. Not the happiest book, but more surreal than it is depressing. I look forward to other books from Rowland. If this is her starting point, she'll be a force to be reckoned with.
    • 2/5
      I found The Transcriptionist to be a depressing book. Other LIbraryThing reviewers have commented on a "haunting" tone, or how it is "powerful", "truthful", and "unique." I can understand all those descriptions for this book. My opinion, however, is that it was depressing. I kept reading because I wanted to finish the book as quickly as I could -- just so I could be done with it. That does not happen often; if I had not wanted to compete the reading to give a fair review, I would have stopped reading early in the story. I love books. I love getting books to add to my personal library (I am a re-reader). This book will not be added to my personal library. I will donate it to my local public library, where perhaps other readers will see in the story the good things suggested by other reviewers. I would give this author another chance; I will look for more of her writing to see if another book pleases me more.
    • 3/5
      Received a copy of The Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland through LibraryThing's Member Giveaway program in exchange for an honest review "Memorization had been her companion in her lonely southern childhood. Her father was a farmer and a minister, and when he discovered that she had a skill for remembering, he had her memorize verses to open his sermon on Sundays. It began as her companion and became her curse. Language was a game, that was how it started, a game between her and her father, the only one they ever played. She was a teenager before she comprehended what her and his congregation believed."Lena Respass is a thirty three year old unassuming, socially-awkward and mild-mannered young woman that has an incredible sense of hearing in conjunction with a gift for memorization. In a sense she is your modern day reluctant superhero. If there ever was an occupation that was the perfect juxtaposition of her being, it would most certainly be that of a transcriptionist or to the minimalist corporate world that of a recording room operator. She works for a New York daily newspaper ironically called, the Record, and generally within the organizational hierarchy as well as the building architecture the transcriptionist is very difficult to find. Tucked away in the corner left to her own devices of desktop, dictaphone and headsets, the true value of the transcriptionist would only be realized if they somehow went the way of the Dodo. Over the years due to the advances of technology and the decline of the newspaper, what once was a field of twenty three has been reduced to one, leaving Lena as the sole survivor. As vital as she is, Lena is consistently mistaken for a machine while taking dictation over the phone from an ever-ending amount of domestic and globe-trotting journalists and is always addressed by a different name by a reporter from the newsroom named Russell. Under-appreciated, isolated, stressed and trapped by her insecurities in a thankless dead-end job, Lena is currently struggling in a mental crisis that she didn't realize she was going through until she meets a remarkable, clairvoyant and identifiable blind woman while taking public transit. Oddly enough this same woman is found dead a few days later after climbing the fence and being mutilated by lions at the Bronx Zoo. The events of the last few days seem to be taking hostage of all of Lena's thoughts, but encouragingly these are her thoughts and not someone else's.This is a deliberate yet subtly-haunting read propelling the written word to great influence on ones mental state as well as the struggle between losing control and maintaining their own individuality. The parallels between person and occupation provided an interesting dynamic, especially the paring down of work and spirit and the hope for redemption. While reading I kept thinking about the movie PI, besides being set in the city that never sleeps, the lead protagonist is constantly being swarmed by numbers on an minute-by-minute basis, while Lena is constantly thinking about words and the unwanted hearing (not always listening) of other people's voices. I appreciate the restraint shown by Lena in not going to extremes in finding a remedy to her migraines, unlike the lead in PI. I know the author was very subtle in the darkness exhibited in the text but imagine if Cronenberg, Lynch, and/or Aronovsky got a piece of this action, they would have a field day putting the drawing boards together for this adaptation. Just contemplate the possibilities, it freaks me out just thinking about it."Lying on the bed, she pushes against the wall with her feet and stares at the ceiling. The Middlemarch passage that the blind woman quoted floats before her eyes, as if she is transcribing for the author and watching the words appear above. ' If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.' She closes her eyes tight, then opens them, but the words remain creeping across the white ceiling She cannot escape them."This is a very unique and courageous read that initially starts well, but falls a little flat towards the conclusion. I found it to have a methodical and deliberate pace but towards the end it got ahead of itself and unravelled inconsistent to the previous setup making it feel rushed. Despite that, I was thoroughly captivated by the mysterious Lena and looked forward to when I had the chance to pick this book up and continue reading. Ultimately, this is a story of a woman's journey to freedom from the bonds brought on at first by her insecurities and last by her obsessions with the written word that have manifested themselves on various points throughout her thirty three years. Along her life's journey she finds a great cause that assists in the finding of her own antidote to her own problems and giving closure for someone lost along the way. The problem I had was that the story would get clouded with its metaphors and varying narratives. It gives the interpretation of a constant haze over the book which helps the reader with the delusional undertones, but weighs the story down to a point that provides a little struggle for focus and comprehension. I give this book a 3 but this is a unique, courageous and respected 3 not a "meh" 3 that I have been handing out all too frequently as of late. I believe this author's best work is ahead of her and I look forward to reading it. " ' I think about suicide, too. But I fear that if my life ends, I will be sent to a room and it will be empty except for one desk, one tape recorder, and one headset.' ' I wish I had stayed with you on the bus that one day. I wish I could have helped you. When I left the academic cloister, I thought the Recording Room would be insulation from the world. But it's not. It's too difficult to eat the news with my ears every day. It leaves a residue. I have letters in my bloodstream, nut graphs in my gut, headlines around my heart. It usurps my soul. You knew about that. But people don't understand, do they? We have to listen. We have to accept them into our bodies. People have no regard for what their stories do."
    • 4/5
      The Transcriptionist is a fantastic read in my opinion. While it's not the 'best' story, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Rowland is able to truly put you in the mind of the main character, Lena. Her character is a transcriptionist who works for a popular newspaper called the Record. From the beginning you can feel the loneliness of Lena, in a chaotic world where the true voice of it's citizens go unheard. Lena is an extremely deep character in my opinion, as she is constantly troubled by the stories she hears in the news room, which leads to her investigation of a woman she meets on a train. I don't really want to give away any spoilers, but I can say that I really enjoyed this book. Rowland is clearly a gifted writer, who made the story flow in a way that could keep my attention. I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next!
    • 4/5
      The Transcriptionist is a very interesting read. I felt mildly uncomfortable throughout the whole book - I mean that as a compliment. Even though I couldn't relate to Lena, the protagonist, I still felt invested in her story and wanted to know if she found some happiness.
    • 3/5
      Amy Rowland’s debut novel is a short, powerful narrative about ethics and truth, and how easy it is to ignore that truth for the bedazzling blinding of spectacle and fame.Lena is a transcriptionist, the last of that breed in a fictitious New York newspaper, hidden away from the manic bustle of the newsroom and limited in her contacts with reporters and editors of the paper. More of her time is spent talking to the pigeons on the ledge than to any actual person working for the paper. Her life gains focus when she is determined to find and honor a blind woman who was mauled to death by a lion in the city zoo. The unknown “Jane Doe” is only given a paragraph in the paper. Lena had only just met, briefly, this woman on a bus and is determined to find out who she was and try and understand her fate. In language that is focused and insightful Amy Rowland paints a probing story about the moral worth of a single forgotten life and the decline of newspaper ethics and responsibility.
    • 3/5
      I read this book only shortly after watching “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and there was an incredible similarity between the main character in that movie and Lena, the main character in “The Transcriptionist”. Both are involved in journalism, in the portrayal of events in the world…but neither is truly of this world. They live almost to the side of life. Observing, and touching it in small ways, but in ways barely noticed – ways that barely touch the surface.Lena is a transcriptionist – an anomaly in the twenty-first century. She works for the Record, an New York newspaper, and transcribes the stories of reporters who do not choose to write their stories – who choose or who must speak them. Few other employees know there even is a transcriptionist – let alone about Lena. She is a vehicle for the words and experiences of others – participating very little even in her own life. Her life is not a life of action, but of words. The few words she speaks are quotes from books she has read. The words she writes have passed through her – from a writer’s voice entering her ears and exiting through her hands.“She lives in this shadow state, always reading the news she knows over the news that makes it into print, and not just reading the shadows, but also living in them, somewhere between waiting and searching. This is what chills her, the erasure, the amputation, the phantom words.”One day, she transcribes the story of a woman mauled to death by a lion, and realizes she’d met the woman a few days before. The encounter, and the woman’s extraordinary death, haunt Lena.“So when the downtown bus stopped, Lena got on and sat beside a woman who had a braille book on her lap. The woman could have been in her forties or her sixties. She had an oval, open face, striking because it had not settled into the Manhattan mask of predator or prey.”The death of the woman fundamentally changes Lena. She starts to move from the shadows, starts taking action instead of only writing the words others dictate about action. She also starts speaking to her, starting to create her own words, dictate stories in which she is an actual participant.“She asks herself why she came, why she feels so much sorrow for a stranger, and whether it is a form of self-pity. She looks at the unbroken landscape, the grass and trees, the clumps of blue aster, the silent, watery sound beyond. She has the sensation of being lowered, and she stands quickly, stomping her feet as if they have gone to sleep, though there hasn’t been time for that.”“The Transcriptionist” feels like a story that almost happened. Lena is so barely tethered to life, that as a reader, I felt like I was seeing ghostly images of the world that surrounded her. So many stories have passed through her that it seems she is only a conduit. She is there not to live, or to interact with the world, but to merely transform the voices of others into written accounts. Hers seems a very tenuous existence – one that could disappear without much notice.
    • 5/5
      Fabulous debut novel! Witty, dark, existential.....these are the first adjectives which come to mind after reading this book straight through. I could not put it down! The terror of alienation strikes the soul of a young woman as she tries to find a self in a world full of horrifying news. The characters are engaging, the plot is unique, and the author's use of language is memorable! Well done!
    • 4/5
      The early promise of this debut didn't quite carry through, but I did enjoy this book: the funny, surreal atmosphere of the newsroom and in particular the peculiar trance evoked by the process of transcribing everything from urgent foreign reports to society columns. The New York brand of loneliness is laid out here in somewhat loving tones—and it works with the premise of digging to learn the story behind a forgotten woman's suicide.
    • 4/5
      Lena is a young woman in a dead-end job. Where at one time the newspaper she works for had two dozen women in their transcription room, there is now only Lena. It is her job to transcribe the words of various reporters around the world and send the article down to the correct editorial desk on the fourth floor of the newspaper’s building. In the vast emptiness of the eleventh floor, separated from the bustle of the newsroom on the fourth floor, Lena conducts her business with the minimum amount of personal contact. She has been at her job for so long that she finds her thoughts being replaced by the words of the reporters as they move through her head, down her arms, through her fingers, and into the articles she types for review.But that changes one day when she reads in the newspaper about a blind woman who was mauled to her death by some lions at the zoo. Lena is amazed to find that she had met the woman only days ago in a chance encounter on the bus. But the article is merely a short blurb about the woman – calling her a Jane Doe. Lena is upset that no one in that newsroom thought even for a moment about learning the woman’s name or trying to find a family member to claim the body.In an effort to find the victim’s family, Lena goes about finding herself. This is a story about self-enlightenment and about doing the right thing.The author’s descriptive passages are rich and detailed. But the premise that this lonely woman, Lena, would take it upon herself to find the dead woman’s family somehow didn’t sit true for me. I found the path to the book’s conclusion a bit contrived but fitting nevertheless. A solid debut novel.
    • 2/5
      One thing I can say for this author: she certainly got across how boring the life of a transcriptionist can be. For me, this book was a real snoozer. I sense that the author had some grand philosophical or metaphysical statement in mind, but it passed me by. Lena, a young woman whose job is transcribing news stories phoned in by reporters, is shocked to learn that a blind woman she had met on the bus the day before committed suicide by entering the lion's enclosure at the zoo. She becomes obsessed with the story and the woman's fate. As others have stated, the story line is slim, as are the connections between various parts of the plot, and the writing was adequate but nothing special. Sorry, not recommended.
    • 3/5
      This was an easy and quick read, not particularly interesting or exciting but enjoyable enough. I learned a lot about transcription and newspapers even though some of the details (delivered in a very streightforward, to-do-manual way) were not necessary to the story, or could have been implied in a much more subtle way. The writing style was probably the biggest hurdle I faced in enjoying this book since it read like someone imitating what they considered to be elegant and literary. In theory, the plot and the themes of this book are very interesting. They were too big for this book though, I think a lot of things could have been done much more effectively and much more compellingly by a more experienced writer. Rowland simply tried to do too much, too quickly. The link between the blind woman and Lena through their experience with lions was flimsy, the long ago death of Lena's mother seemed to have nothing to really do with the story, and the random love interest was the most entertaining, if irrelevant, part. She should have just stuck with the trapped pigeon metaphor. The characters were charming, but forgettable. Ending with the obituary of the blind woman who's death launches the story was touching but not nearly as powerful as it could have been had I cared more about both her and the protagonist. All in all this seems like Rowlandson's reflection on her disillusionment with the media following 9/11.
    • 4/5
      Amy Rowland's debut novel The Transcriptionist almost entirely revolves around her character Lena--a transcriptionist for a fictional New York newspaper--the Record--one that I imagined anyway as the New York Times. What Lena does is record and transcribe news articles from reporters in the field. It's a lonely job up on the 11th floor (if I remember rightly) in a room pretty much to herself but Amy is kind of loner. At a bus stop one day she meets and talks to a blind woman--within a couple days the same blind woman is mauled to death by a lion in a zoo. When the story comes through her office she is shocked by the coincidence and sets herself the quest of finding out more about the woman and why exactly she died. Another thread to the story--is about the media itself--how it controls the 'news' and how it can be manipulated by powerful outside entities--more specifically in this case the government. Lena eventually butts heads with the Record's publisher over an article supposedly (but not) written on the spot in Iraq by a star reporter that the reporter first passes through the Pentagon for approval. This costs her her job.Anyway while reading this I thought of Jose Saramago as a comparable as well. The tones in this are Lena's tones and they are quiet and introspective. The plot is well thought out and executed. It's a very intelligent but also an entertaining book. For a first novel it sets a very high standard for Rowland for the future.