'WHATEVER YOU DO hang on to the phone. . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! Feel the smoothness of
its bevelled screen . . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! Place your thumb in the soft depression
of its belly-button - turn it over and over. . . . . . . . ! . . . . . . . . ! A five
hundred-quid worry bead - and all I worry about is losing the bloody thing. . . . . . . . ! . .
. . . . . . !'For the four characters at the heart of Will Self's brilliantly acute novel of
our times the five hundred-quid worry bead in their pocket may be both a blessing and a curse.
For elderly Dr Zachary Busner it is a mysterious object - 'NO CALLER ID - How should this be
interpreted? Is it that the caller is devoid of an identity due to some psychological or
physical trauma?' - but also it's his life line to his autistic grandson Ben whose own
connection with technology is in turn a vital one.For Jonathan De'Ath aka 'the Butcher'
MI6 agent the phone may reveal his best kept secret of all: that Colonel Gawain Thomas
husband father and highly-trained tank commander - is Jonathan 's long time lover. And when
technology love and violence finally converge in the wreckage of postwar Iraq the Colonel and
the Spy's dalliance will determine the destiny of nations. Uniting our most urgent contemporary
concerns: from the ubiquitous mobile phone to a family in chaos from the horror of modern war
to the end of privacy Phone is Will Self's most important and compelling novel to date.
