The Typewriter Inheritance, Part Three
By David Michael Newstead.
I combed through the handful of available books that are about typewriters, finding some interesting gems along the way. For example…
Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America
Typewriter Battalion: Dramatic Front-line Dispatches from World War II
The book I liked most though was called The Story of My Typewriter by Paul Auster and Sam Messer. It’s short and centered on the New York-based writer (Paul Auster) discussing the significance of his aging typewriter in his career and in his life, while the artist (Sam Messer) creates elaborate renderings of the device. Below, I include an excerpt from the book.
Sam has taken possession of my typewriter, and little by little he has turned an inanimate object into a being with a personality and a presence in the world. The typewriter has moods and desires now, it expresses dark angers and exuberant joys, and trapped within its gray, metallic body, you would almost swear that you could hear the beating of a heart.
