An astonishing novel of loss and grief from Booker Prize Shortlisted Everett. Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. After a field trip he returns home to find his world crumbled. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off in secret on a quixotic rescue mission. A deeply affecting story.

An astonishing novel of loss and grief from Booker Prize Shortlisted Everett. Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world his daughter has developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter's slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he's ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission. A deeply affecting story about the lengths to which loss and grief will drive us, Telephone is a Percival Everett novel we should have seen coming all along, one that will shake you to the core as it asks questions about the power of narrative to save.