The Beautiful Bureaucrat

A New York Times Notable Book Best book of the year in the New York Times, Bustle, Time Out, The Atlantic, Slate, Electric Literature'Funny, sad, scary and beautiful. I love it' Ursula K. Le Guin If the job market hadn't been so bleak during that long, humid summer, Josephine might have been discouraged from taking the administrative position in a windowless building in a remote part of town. As the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings - the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls, her boss has terrible breath, and there are cockroaches in the bath of her sublet. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread. Both chilling and poignant, this novel asks the biggest questions about marriage and fidelity, birth and death. Helen Phillips twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder - luminous and new.

A New York Times Notable Book Best book of the year in the New York Times, Bustle, Time Out, The Atlantic, Slate, Electric Literature'Funny, sad, scary and beautiful. I love it' Ursula K. Le Guin If the job market hadn't been so bleak during that long, humid summer, Josephine might have been discouraged from taking the administrative position in a windowless building in a remote part of town. As the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings - the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls, her boss has terrible breath, and there are cockroaches in the bath of her sublet. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread. Both chilling and poignant, this novel asks the biggest questions about marriage and fidelity, birth and death. Helen Phillips twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder - luminous and new.

"Chilling . . . the perfect summer page-turner." -- Chicago Tribune "Kafka would love The Beautiful Bureaucrat . . . . It's a surprising revelation of a book from an uncompromising author as unique as she is talented." --NPR "Riveting . . . thrillerlike . . . Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions." -- The New York Times Book Review In a windowless building in a remote part of town, a newly employed young woman, Josephine, inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. As the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings--the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread, in Helen Phillips's The Beautiful Bureaucrat.

"Chilling . . . the perfect summer page-turner." -- Chicago Tribune "Kafka would love The Beautiful Bureaucrat . . . . It's a surprising revelation of a book from an uncompromising author as unique as she is talented." --NPR "Riveting . . . thrillerlike . . . Ultimately, The Beautiful Bureaucrat succeeds because it isn't afraid to ask the deepest questions." -- The New York Times Book Review In a windowless building in a remote part of town, a newly employed young woman, Josephine, inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. As the days inch by and the files stack up, Josephine feels increasingly anxious in her surroundings--the office's scarred pinkish walls take on a living quality, the drone of keyboards echoes eerily down the long halls. When one evening her husband Joseph disappears and then returns, offering no explanation as to his whereabouts, her creeping unease shifts decidedly to dread, in Helen Phillips's The Beautiful Bureaucrat.