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This story of grief and hopeful redemption was a 2020 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Well-deserved!

Everett is an angular writer, coming in sharp from all sides, but also circumspect, by not revealing all the underlying significance. Zack Wells, tenured professor and geologist/paleobiologist, is happiest playing chess with his bright, beautiful 12-year-old daughter, Sarah. Similarly, he is content contemplating an inaccessible cave in the Grand Canyon called “Naught’s Cave.�� Hence, the implication of nothingness in his life. It's the old beat-up paradox that nothing is everything.

Zach and his wife, Meg, are about to find out some bad news that will cause prolonged torment and a forlorn future. Dr Wells cannot prevent the inevitable tragedy about to befall his family, so he turns to a cryptic message found in a jacket he bought online. Someone is asking for help. Can Zach save a stranger in trouble?

“…I had this palpable swath of melancholy that ran through me that I simply could not shake.�� That’s a poignant thread that runs through this multilayered story, as is the potential for Zach’s melancholia to transcend---and, maybe not save him, but at least give him a purpose amid the worst horror of his life. (I know that the cover blurb and most reviews give away the forthcoming tragedy, but I urge readers to discover that for themselves.)

While Zach's heart is shattering to pieces, he has an opportunity to be a salvation for people he has only learned about from a distance. If you've read Bolaño's 2666, you'll apprehend the despairing situation in Ciudad Juárez.

Telephone combines family drama, comedy, tragedy, mystery, thriller, and adventure. Everett doesn't exactly answers all our questions; rather, he largely leaves interpretation up to the reader. There are three versions/variations of this book. THREE! Zach has three versions of his life in front of him. And if we got three readers together who each read a different rendition, oh, what a curious event that would be!

If you want to know which version you have, you can look below the ISBN number to see if it is A, B, or C. Or look at the gorgeous cover at the minor variations of the illustrated compasses (but you would need to see the three different covers online). There are also three dedications. A is "For Henry and Miles." B is "For Miles and Henry." C is just "my sons." (Mine is the B version.)

The eponymous title is from the well-known game. You whisper a message around a circle of people and then have a laugh over how much the final message was distorted from the original.

Why would Everett do this?

I'll close on some thoughtful words by the author himself: “I’m interested not in the authority of the artist, but the authority of the reader.��