A young wife's new job pits her against the unfeeling machinations of the universe in this dazzling first novel Ursula K. Le Guin hails as "funny, sad, scary, beautiful. I love it."
In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but 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 echo 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. As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond. Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder - luminous and new.
In a windowless building in a remote part of town, the newly employed Josephine inputs an endless string of numbers into something known only as The Database. After a long period of joblessness, she's not inclined to question her fortune, but 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 echo 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. As other strange events build to a crescendo, the haunting truth about Josephine's work begins to take shape in her mind, even as something powerful is gathering its own form within her. She realizes that in order to save those she holds most dear, she must penetrate an institution whose tentacles seem to extend to every corner of the city and beyond. Both chilling and poignant, The Beautiful Bureaucrat is a novel of rare restraint and imagination. With it, Helen Phillips enters the company of Murakami, Bender, and Atwood as she twists the world we know and shows it back to us full of meaning and wonder - luminous and new.
Praise for this book
"Told with the light touch of a Calvino and the warm heart of a Saramago, this brief fable-novel is funny, sad, scary, and beautiful. I love it." - Ursula K Le Guin
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Used availability for Helen Phillips's The Beautiful Bureaucrat
Hardback Editions
August 2015 : USA Hardback
Paperback Editions
June 2018 : UK Paperback
April 2017 : UK Paperback

Title: The Beautiful Bureaucrat
Author(s): Helen Phillips
ISBN: 1-78227-332-8 / 978-1-78227-332-5 (UK edition)
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Availability: Amazon UK
May 2016 : USA Paperback
Audio Editions
May 2016 : USA Audio CD
August 2015 : USA MP3 CD
August 2015 : USA Audio edition

Title: The Beautiful Bureaucrat: A Novel
Author(s): Helen Phillips
Publisher: Audible Studios
Availability: Amazon
August 2015 : Canada Audio edition

Title: The Beautiful Bureaucrat: A Novel
Author(s): Helen Phillips
Publisher: Audible Studios
Availability: Amazon CA
Kindle Editions
April 2017 : UK Kindle edition

Title: The Beautiful Bureaucrat
Author(s): Helen Phillips
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Availability: Amazon UK
August 2015 : USA, Canada Kindle edition