Hello?
Spencer Hill Press,
Late one night, in a moment of deep grief, Tricia places a call to her deceased grandmother’s old phone number. She expects the click of a dial tone, a disconnect notice, an empty void, but she is thrown when another teen–too, up late and desperate–answers. It’s Emerson, and though the two are perfect strangers, Tricia senses a connection that runs deeper beyond the cross of telephone wires.
Emerson expects to hear the voice of Angie, his overeager girlfriend, but is transfixed by Tricia’s tenderness and heartache. The two make a pact, thus setting the events of HELLO? in motion.
HELLO? is the story of five small town Wisconsin teens who live on the shores of Lake Michigan: Tricia, who has lost her family, and trying to find her way; her over-protective boyfriend Brian, a potter; the perfectionist Emerson; the insecure and unpredictable Angie; and her impressionable best friend Brenda, an aspiring actress and screenwriter.
Told from all five viewpoints: narration (Tricia), narration (Emerson), free verse poetry (Angie), screenplay format (Brenda), narration and drawings (Brian), HELLO? offers a textured account of five lives, and weaves together the stories of these teens into a compelling narrative of serendipity, fortune, and a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts.