About this item

Smart and inventive, an emotional page-turner that considers the elusive definition of happiness. Pearl's job is to make people happy. Every day, she provides customers with personalized recommendations for greater contentment. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her, successful. But how does one measure an emotion? Meanwhile, there's Pearl's teenage son, Rhett. A sensitive kid who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence, Rhett seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. The very rejection of joy is his own kind of "pursuit of happiness." As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett--but is it for his sake or for hers? Certainly it would make Pearl happier. Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job--not as happiness technician, and not as mother, either. Told from an alternating cast of endearing characters from within Pearl and Rhett's world, Tell the Machine Goodnight delivers a smartly moving and entertaining story about relationships and the ways that they can most surprise and define us. Along the way, Katie Williams playfully illuminates our national obsession with positive psychology, our reliance on quick fixes and technology. What happens when these obsessions begin to overlap? With warmth, humor, and a clever touch, Williams taps into our collective unease about the modern world and allows us see it a little more clearly.



About the Author

Katie Williams

Katie Williams is the author of the novel Tell the Machine Goodnight and the young adult novels Absent and The Space Between Trees. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Best American Fantasy, American Short Fiction, Ploughshares, Subtropics, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas. She teaches writing and literature in San Francisco.You can find Katie at www.katiewilliamsbooks.com



Read Next Recommendation

Report incorrect product information.