A review by barbarajean
Telephone by Percival Everett

challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I’ve been wanting to read more by Percival Everett (having read James last year), and finally picked this one up. It’s so good, and so different from James. The narrative shifts between Zach’s family and his job as a professor, and his efforts to unravel the mysterious pleas for help he’s found in clothes ordered from eBay—two very different plotlines, yet the book doesn’t feel uneven. Following Zach as he processes grief and impending loss—and also avoids it—is an interesting study in control and letting go, and in the human need to effect change in the face of helplessness.

Everett’s technique of publishing three different versions, with three different endings, fascinates me. I read version A, and I initially liked the ending until I thought about it a bit more. It dropped some major threads and left them unresolved, making me wonder a lot about how that particular plotline was (or wasn’t) resolved in the other versions.