Tell The Machine Goodnight

Told from an alternating cast of endearing characters, Tell The Machine Goodnight delivers a smartly moving and entertaining story about the advance of technology and the ways that it can most surprise and define us.

“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.” -  Jason Sheehan, NPR

Pearl's job is to make people happy. As a technician for the Apricity Corporation, with its patented happiness machine, 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, who seems to find greater satisfaction in being unhappy. As his mother, Pearl wants nothing more than to help Rhett - but is it for his sake or for hers? Regardless, her son is one person whose emotional life does not fall under the parameters of her job.

"The book feels like an extended episode of ‘Black Mirror,’ and certainly has that show’s taste for dark humour and high-concept philosophizing around our tech addition...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

Katie Williams playfully illuminates our national obsession with positive psychology and our reliance on quick fixes. What happens when these obsessions begin to overlap? With warmth, humour, and a clever touch, Williams taps into our collective unease about the modern world and allows us to see it a little more clearly.