Start gifting
Libro.fm for Business
Start a membership, get two free audiobooks
As recommended by NPR
Bookseller pick
Send as gift
Add to Wish List
Almost ready!
In order to save audiobooks to your Wish List you must be signed in to your account.
Log in Create account
Limited-time offer
Get two free audiobooks when you make the switch!
Now’s a great time to shop indie. When you start a new membership supporting local bookstores with promo code SWITCH, we’ll give you two bonus audiobook credits at sign-up.
Make the switch
Gift audiobook credit bundles
You pick the number of credits, your recipient picks the audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase.
Start giftingYou Only Call When You're in Trouble
A Novel
Narrator
André Santana
This audiobook uses AI narration.
We’re taking steps to make sure AI narration is transparent.
Learn more
Length
11 hours 53 minutes
Language
English
Bookseller recommendation
“Heartwarming, charming, and funny, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble has characters that will become imprinted on your heart. Stephen McCauley gives us a novel that will set the bar for your 2024 reading!”
— Mary O'Malley • Skylark Bookshop
"André Santana's impressive narration deals with one family's contemporary problems...As one crisis bleeds into another, Santana's cool performance and objective distance make this entertaining listening."—AudioFile
“I don’t think I will find a book I love more this year.”
—Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author
“Funny, poignant, joyous, explosive, but most of all affirming of our connections to one another. You Only Call When You're in Trouble is a book to cherish. A book that loves you back. What more could you want, my gosh? Read it!”
—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost
Is it ever okay to stop caring for others and start living for yourself?
After a lifetime of taking care of his impossible but irresistible sister and his cherished niece, Tom is ready to put himself first. An architect specializing in tiny houses, he finally has an opportunity to build his masterpiece—“his last shot at leaving a footprint on the dying planet.” Assuming, that is, he can stick to his resolution to keep the demands of his needy family at bay.
Naturally, that’s when his phone rings. His niece, Cecily—the real love of Tom’s life, as his boyfriend reminded him when moving out—is embroiled in a Title IX investigation at the college where she teaches that threatens her career and relationship. And after decades of lying, his sister wants him to help her tell Cecily the real identity of her father.
Tom does what he’s always done—answers the call. Thus begins a journey that will change everyone’s life and demonstrate the beauty or dysfunction (or both?) of the ties that bind families together and sometimes strangle them.
Warm, funny, and deeply moving, You Only Call When You’re in Trouble is an unforgettable showcase for Stephen McCauley’s distinctive voice and unique ability to create complex characters that jump off the page and straight into your heart.
A Macmillan Audio production from Henry Holt & Company.
Stephen McCauley is the author of seven previous novels, including national bestsellers My Ex-Life, The Object of My Affection, and Alternatives to Sex. Three of his books have been made into feature films. The New York Times Book Review dubbed him “the secret love child of Edith Wharton and Woody Allen,” and the French Ministry of Culture named him a Chevalier in the Order of Arts and Letters. He currently codirects the Creative Writing program at Brandeis University.
Featured in these playlists...
Reviews
“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.”
—Francine Prose, author of Blue Angel and The Vixen
“McCauley’s novels are always a cause for celebration, and You Only Call When You’re In Trouble shows why.”
—Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less Is Lost
“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.”
—Jane Green, New York Times bestselling author
“Picture F. Scott Fitzgerald with tongue in cheek and you get the gift of Stephen McCauley's You Only Call When You're in Trouble. I loved these deliciously flawed characters and every thought that runs through their heads. As with all things Stephen McCauley, it has the highest of wit and the sharpest of social commentary plus tenderness and much love.”
—Elinor Lipman, author of Ms. Demeanor
“Stephen McCauley’s delicious new novel follows its characters, light on their feet as they search for their best selves. Along the way, they dodge with agility an assortment of contemporary obstacles—flagging relationships, employment insecurities, delusional parents. The author’s rare ability is finding the humor lining sadness to create a complex story with emotional depth.”
—Carol Anshaw, author of New York Times bestseller Carry the One
“McCauley writes sentences that ring with the clear and true tones of melodies spun from crystal glassware. . . . This incandescent mixture of observational humor and humane characterizations makes Stephen McCauley worth calling on again and again." lining sadness to create a complex story with emotional depth.”
—Dave Wheeler, Shelf Awareness
"Every page pleases. . . .The story is beautifully written and replete with laugh-out-loud pronouncements. . . . Add to this fully realized, empathic characters (well, a few of them are real stinkers), and you have an unmitigated delight and a book that you'll hate to see end."
—Booklist (starred review)
"Another chronicle of modern disappointments and their occasional consolations from a master of the modern social novel."
—Kirkus