Copy Boy
It’s 1937. Jane’s a very difficult girl. She’ll become a remarkable woman, an icon of her century, but that’s a long way off.
She’s left her pregnant mother with a man she hates, abandoned her father for dead in an irrigation ditch, remade herself as her dead brother Benny, and lied her way into a job as a newspaper copy boy.
Everything’s finally looking up. She’s climbing the ladder at the paper, scoring connections with the artists and thinkers of her day. But then Daddy reappears on the paper’s front page, his arm around a girl who’s just been beaten into a coma one block from Jane’s newspaper―hit in the head with a crowbar.
Copy Boy: A Jane Benjamin Novel is a San Francisco noir about a girl who becomes a boy to escape a crime she may or may not have committed.
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“Copy Boy is a fantastic story of a young woman’s survival and re-invention, set in Northern California during the Depression. Blanton-Stroud’s prose sings and crackles and brings us into the world of Jane with so much compassion and beauty and wisdom. An engaging, wonderfully original book.”
“A stellar debut. Copy Boy may be Shelley Blanton-Stroud’s first novel, but it’s apparent from page one that she’s been working on her craft for many years. Combining the best elements of noir, historical fiction, and coming-of-age stories, Blanton-Stroud has written a compelling, nuanced story. Deftly plotted and expertly executed, Copy Boy is as mesmerizing as the moment when the fog lifts over Nob Hill. Highly recommended.”
“Full of adventure, chutzpah, historical detail, and, most of all, heart, Copy Boy is a thrilling, Depression-era coming-of-age story well suited to our times.”
“Shelley Blanton-Stroud’s Copy Boy explores place and identity with sharp-edged suspense and intrigue. Smart, lively, and suspenseful, this is Raymond Chandler for feminists.”
“Shelley Blanton-Stroud’s Copy Boy is one of those novels that can rekindle your faith in fiction. Her distinctive voice, command of historical details, and sheer storytelling verve show through on every page. Maybe this exact story never happened, but it should have—in exactly this way. A bravura debut—I’m expecting great things from this author.”