Telephone
About the book
Author: Percival Everett
Publisher: Graywolf Press
More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.
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My review
I feel like the buzz about Telephone got somewhat swallowed up in recent years after all the prize attention he got for The Trees and, of course, James — even though Telephone was a Pulitzer finalist! — but this is an absolute diamond in the rough waiting for anyone who found their way (or their way back) to literary fiction during the pandemic.
The book itself — about a professor whose daughter is diagnosed with a terminal illness around the same time he finds a note that says “help me” in a used shirt he bought on eBay — is phenomenal. But the real treat comes in the fact that there are not one, but three versions of the text, denoted by the direction of the compass on the front (and the color of the Graywolf logo on the spine, and the letter A, B, or C after the ISBN). They are largely the same, except for a few key details and the way the book ends.
You absolutely MUST read this with a few friends or, better yet, a book club. Make sure at least one person is reading each version of the book. And then revel in Everett’s genius as you discuss it, uncovering the differences and realizing just how much of a game of telephone he has managed to create.
You can also revel in the heartbreak of this book — Everett’s exploration of grief and his protagonist’s desperation to save someone (anyone) will not let you go.
Percival Everett really just doesn’t miss, does he?
Content and trigger warnings
Child death
Dementia
Grief
Human trafficking
Suicide
