'Philosophical, funny, cleverly structured, unpredictable' Gabrielle Zevin Happiness is Pearl's job. Using the revolutionary Apricity machine, every day she provides customers with personalized recommendations for their emotional wellbeing; from eating more tangerines to cutting off a finger, from getting a dog to getting a divorce. She's good at her job, her office manager tells her. But Pearl is starting to wonder whether it's even possible to measure an emotion. Pearl's teenage son, Rhett, is a sensitive boy who has forged an unconventional path through adolescence. He seems somehow to find greater contentment in being unhappy. If only Pearl could persuade him to take the Apricity test... but what if she doesn't like what she finds? TELL THE MACHINE GOODNIGHT is a wry, prescient and hilarious debut. For fans of Jennifer Egan and Ruth Ozeki, it is both a cautionary tale about the advance of technology and a scalpel-sharp depiction of the darkest depths of the human psyche.

Author Biography

Katie Williams's short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, Subtropics, and elsewhere. Williams earned her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas at Austin. She teaches writing and literature at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. She is the author of two young adult novels, The Space Between Trees and Absent. This is her first novel for adults.