Today’s GalleyCrush is Jana Larson’s Reel Bay: A Cinematic Essay, forthcoming from Coffee House Press on January 19, 2021.
Perfect pitch: “Equal parts memoir, mystery, reclaimed screenplay, and travelogue, Reel Bay charts Jana Larson’s unusual journey toward understanding another woman’s life.”
First lines: “If this book were a film, it would open on the black-and-white image of a woman walking alone on a snow-covered road. She is seen from a distance, a dark impression against a frozen backdrop of wheat fields covered in white.”
Big blurb: “I have no idea what the hell this book is—in the best way—except that it’s obsessive and dazzling as it spawns and splits fictions and nonfictions. Expect to be dizzied. Reel Bay vibrates with strangeness.” —Ander Monson
Book notes: Paperback, nonfiction, 296 pages.
Author bio: Jana Larson holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing from Hamline University, an MFA in filmmaking from the University of California in San Diego, and a BA in anthropology from the University of California in Santa Cruz. As a filmmaker, she has received awards from the Princess Grace Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board and shown her work at festivals and the Walker Art Center. She lives in Minneapolis.
