In January 2024, Henry Holt and Co. published Stephen McCauley's new book,
You Only Call When You’re in Trouble. A blend of family and literary fiction, it centers on the lives of a sixty-something brother (Tom), his sister (Dorothy), and her thirty-four-year-old daughter (Cecily). The novel opens with Dorothy, who has recently moved to Woodstock, NY, preparing to send a momentous email message to Cecily:
Dorothy had turned on some music when she sat down to write this email. The designer friends had programmed her cell phone and hooked it up to a speaker system, so even she knew how to put on a playlist. She hadn’t been paying much attention for the past hour, but now, at just the right moment, she heard the familiar clear soprano of 1970s Joni Mitchell. This had been the background music to most of the important moments in her life. It was Mitchell’s iconic song about this town that had given Dorothy the courage to move here. We are stardust, we are golden . . . Impossible not to think of the random appearance of Joni, right here, right now, in her too-sunny living room, as a sign. By the end of the song, she’d send the email.
She turned up the volume and started to type.
It’s a great book, and I highly recommend it. In the words of Francine Prose, “I read You Only Call When You’re in Trouble at a moment when I needed to be around the intelligence and humanity of the novel’s characters, and I’m still grateful for being so happily entertained and totally engrossed.” New York Times bestselling author Jane Green adds, “I can’t find the words to say how much I love You Only Call When You’re in Trouble. This perfect novel has profoundly moving observations of human nature, emotional acuity, and brilliant insights wrapped up in warmth and wit. I don’t think I will find a book I love more this year.”
Dorothy’s email message to her daughter includes the line, “I should have guessed Woodstock was the town I was meant to live in . . . I’ve always known that one way or another, I’d get myself back to the garden.”
Other parts of the book occur in Boston and Chicago. The Woodstock setting may have been selected by McCauley largely for its usefulness as a cultural and generational metaphor. But on the other hand, aren’t most of us, wherever we live and whatever our circumstances, trying to get back to the garden?
