Tell the Machine Goodnight
what does happiness really mean?
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 contentment in being unhappy.
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. 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.
2018 Kirkus Prize Finalist in Fiction
Kirkus Best Literary Fiction of 2018
NPR Best Books of 2018
New York Times Editor’s Choice
Real Simple Best Books of 2018
Pure Wow Best Books of 2018
2020 Dublin International Literary Award Longlist
“Sci-fi in its most perfect expression…Reading it is like having a lucid dream of six years from next week, filled with people you don’t know, but will.” —NPR
“With its clever, compelling vision of the future, deeply human characters, and delightfully unpredictable story, this novel is itself a recipe for contentment.” —Kirkus Reviews, STARRED Review
“Williams offers a master class in not losing sight of the human element… the kind of story that – in the subtlest of ways – can instruct us, and nourish us, and make us want to live and love a little better.”—Matt Haig, New York Times Book Review
“[Williams’s] wit is sharp, but her touch is light, and her novel is a winner.” – San Francisco Chronicle
“Williams’s debut, a savvy take on technology’s potential and its moral failings, imagines a near future in which lives are altered by a happiness machine…Williams never allows satire to overtake her story’s moral center or its profoundly generous and humanistic heart, resulting in a sharp and moving novel.” —Publishers Weekly
“With its large heart, compelling cast of characters and frighteningly-not-far-from-reality technology, Tell the Machine Goodnight is a story that will compel you to keep reading, while also allowing you the space to meditate on the understanding that happiness looks different for everyone.” —PopMatters
“Delightfully weird and humorous…a fascinating exploration of our increasing reliance on technology and our obsession with finding a quick fix for everything.” —Shondaland
“So fundamentally human that it transcends time—our insatiable need to feel better, to decipher whatever happiness means.” —BookPage
“Philosophical, funny, cleverly structured, unpredictable. The characters are recognizably humans, but not ones I have met before; the world-building is creative and completely convincing. I doubt I will ever read another a novel with a more moving trip up a VR mountain.” —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times-bestselling author of Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
“Allow me to introduce you to your new favorite writer. Katie Williams plunges into our obsession with technology and its effect on our lives and dreams, and emerges with miraculous gifts for us—she unwraps the present and the future.” —James Hannaham, award-winning author of Delicious Foods: A Novel
“Katie Williams’s fierce moral intelligence sparks off the page…Generous, perceptive, intensely smart: this is just the novel we need.” —Kirstin Valdez Quade, award-winning author of Night at the Fiestas and The Five Wounds
“My prescription for happiness is: ‘Sit still, read a book that can’t be classified by genre, and tell everyone.’ I’m telling you, Katie Williams delivers. Tell the Machine Goodnight transcends categorization in the best way possible—it is part love story, part science fiction, part feminist inspirational wake-up call, and all of it moving and compelling. I never knew what was going to happen and, when I found out, I was always delighted.” —Helen Ellis, New York Times-bestselling author of American Housewife
“Filled with extraordinary writing, wish-they-existed characters, and unexpected narrative turns, this novel will delight your mind and heart.” —Courtney Maum, author of Touch and I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You
“How much control do we have over our own happiness—and would we be better off if we had the ability to nudge it just a little more?…A captivating, thought-provoking and utterly charming novel about the elusive nature of happiness and the limits of both technology and our own self-knowledge.” —Carolyn Parkhurst, New York Times-bestselling author of Harmony and The Dogs of Babel