Phone
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The new novel from Booker-shortlisted Will Self completes his trilogy, begun with Umbrella, and continued with Shark—a highly praised exploration of technology and psychopathology from World War I to WikiLeaks, a story of love, death, and madness
Published to rave reviews in the United Kingdom, Phone tells the story of two men: Zack Busner and Jonathan De’Ath. Busner is a psychiatrist who has made his name through his unorthodox treatment of psychological damage, such as giving the controversial drug L-DOPA to patients ravaged by encephalitis, or administering LSD to World War II PTSD-sufferers. But now Busner’s own mind is fraying: Alzheimer’s is shredding his memory and his newest possession is a shiny smartphone given to him by his introverted grandson Ben. Meanwhile, Jonathan De’Ath, aka “the Butcher,” is an MI6 man who remains a mystery even to those closest to him, be it his washed-up old university lecturer father, his jumbling-bumbling mother, his hippy-dippy brothers, his spooky colleagues or multitudinous lovers. All of De’Ath’s acquaintances apply the “Butcher” epithet to him, and perhaps there is only one person who thinks of him with tenderness, a man he keeps top secret, encrypted in the databanks of his steely mind: Colonel Gawain Thomas, husband, father, highly-trained tank commander, and Jonathan De’Ath’s long-time lover. As Busner’s mind totters and Jonathan and Gawain’s affair teeters, they come to face the interconnectedness of all lives, online and off, while an irritating phone continues to ring… ring… ring…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the hefty stream-of-consciousness conclusion to Self's ambitious trilogy (Umbrella, Shark), disconnected narratives collide, bringing long-hidden secrets to light. Zachary Busner, a retired psychiatrist, embarks on a spiritual journey that requires him to come to terms with the Alzheimer's blurring his reality. Despite his criticism of modern technology's emphasis on data-gathering, he carries a constantly ringing smartphone with him, programmed by his autistic, technology-adept grandson to provide him with an illusion of continued independence. Meanwhile, Jonathan De'Ath, a British intelligence officer who goes by the moniker "The Butcher," falls in love and pursues a furtive long-term relationship with a handsome, closeted soldier named Gawain. As Gawain rises through the army ranks and Jonathan's carefully kept records of their phone booth conversations and remote bed-and-breakfast liaisons build, they weigh the consequences of keeping their affair hidden. Self's densely cerebral prose leaps between narratives, disregarding linear storytelling and paragraph breaks in favor of extended musings that are often intelligent and periodically insightful. It's less than subtle, however, in how heavily it hammers home messages about the dehumanizing impacts of war, screen-based communication, and psychological wounds that have never fully healed. But then again, Self hasn't built his career on subtlety.
