You Only Call When You're in Trouble
A Novel
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
An IndieNext Pick for January 2024
One of Pure Wow's “9 Books we can't wait to read in January”
Named one of Electric Literature's “42 Queer Books You Need to Read in 2024”
“McCauley’s gifts for prose, plot and provocation are likely to offer you a few fast-flying hours in his sunny, slightly futuristic world.”—The Washington Post
Stephen McCauley’s rollicking and touching novel asks an increasingly important question: Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?
After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.
Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.
Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.
Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley’s distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In McCauley's entertaining if overlong family saga (after My Ex-Life), a 30-something Chicago professor reckons with personal drama amid a professional crisis. Cecily, the subject of a Title IX case involving a student named Lee, receives an invitation from her mother Dorothy to visit her in Woodstock, N.Y. (Dorothy has attempted to lure Cecily by saying she's finally ready to share the truth about Cecily's paternity.) On the way, Cecily sees her uncle Tom, Dorothy's brother, an architect and a surrogate father figure who looked out for Cecily when she was growing up with a single mother. Although Tom is struggling from a recent breakup and being forced to compromise on his newest architectural design, he welcomes her in Boston. Cecily happens to run into Lee at the airport, and Lee, who's fixated on Cecily, claims that she wasn't the one who lodged the complaint. Eventually, the story winds its way to Woodstock, where Dorothy makes some late-breaking yet unsurprising revelations. The dialogue is breezy, and Tom and Cecily are rendered dynamically, but McCauley loses focus in the overstuffed plot. This has its moments, but it's not the author's best.
