Tell Us When To Go

by Emil DeAndreis

“Blossoms with genuine heart and pathos...DeAndreis's novel is a hallelujah to the imperfect beauty of friendship and baseball.”
— ZACK RUSKIN, SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

“DeAndreis has written a fiery satire about friendship,...Silicon Valley and the swiftly tilting madhouse which inequality has wrought...impossible-to-put-down and heartbreaking in all the right places …”
— JUNOT DÍAZ IS THE AUTHOR OF THE BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE OF OSCAR WAO, WINNER OF THE 2008 PULITZER PRIZE

“Tell Us When To Go explores the ever-changing city and various lived experiences of SF residents.”
— MEGAN ROSE DICKEY, AXIOS

“DeAndreis is aware of the power of and suggestions made by language, evidenced by the nuanced characters and their grappling with class, friendship, and failure”
— SUZY EYNON, THE MASTERS REVIEW

“Emil DeAndreis sees what so many of us miss, about the Bay Area and beyond. Tell Us When To Go has such great energy, such propulsive momentum in the telling. Here’s the truth delivered with intensity and humor. What more could anybody ask of a contemporary novel?”
— PETER ORNER, AUTHOR OF AM I ALONE HERE?, ESTHER STORIES, AND LAST CAR OVER THE SAGAMORE BRIDGE

“Tell Us When To Go is funny and wise—a rollicking satire that’s not only timely but timeless. Emil DeAndreis shines the penetrating light of his substantial wit on the darker corners of the way we live, illuminating what makes us human, but also, sometimes, inhumane. DeAndreis is a terrific writer working at the top of his game.”
— MOLLY ANTOPOL, NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE FOR THE UN-AMERICANS

“We know from the first page of Tell Us When To Go that we’re in good hands. Through the lens of baseball and San Francisco, DeAndreis brings to life the beauty and pain of loving something so much that it can be too much to bear. In the end, DeAndreis’s smart, moving novel is about one thing: how we save each other.”
— JOAN RYAN, AUTHOR OF INTANGIBLES: UNLOCKING THE SCIENCE AND SOUL OF TEAM CHEMISTRY


Description:
The post-recession Bay Area is a land fertile for world-changers and dreamers. This is the setting for Tell Us When To Go, a millennial coming-of-age story, part Silicon Valley satire and part urgent glimpse into the darker sides of privilege, troll culture, and class disparity. It asks the question, what comes of a friendship, or a city, with so much splitting it apart? Can it be saved?

Cole Gallegos is the ace of his college pitching staff, projected to make millions in the big leagues. But a ruthless case of “yips” leads him to break down and drop out of college.

Cole’s teammate Isaac Moss is a wallflower who lacks direction and independence, so he follows Cole to San Francisco, where they rent a dingy apartment and attempt adult lives.

Desperate for a job, Cole is hired by Seaside High to work one-on-one with foster youth Dizzy Benson, who is one strike from getting expelled. The two do not vibe, to say the least. Days are turbulent with standoffs and threats. But their disconnect is not without humor, and with time their grudges against the world clumsily unite them.

Meanwhile Isaac is hired as a temp at a growing startup in Silicon Valley, where he enjoys breakrooms with hammocks, and teambuilding beer-tastings. Through this, he begins to gel with this fast paced and vibrant workforce that’s begun to sweep through San Francisco. For once, he feels confident, even cool.

With such different days and perspectives, Cole and Isaac begin to diverge, much like the city itself. Told across one semester, Tell Us When To Go explores a city amid change, and the people and friendships that are liable to change with it.

A portion of the proceeds from Tell Us When To Go goes to the Council of Community Housing Organizations of San Francisco, which is committed to fostering development of permanently affordable housing in San Francisco.

263 pages, Unknown Binding

Published September 20, 2022

About the author

Emil DeAndreis has three books, Beyond Folly and Hard To Grip and most recently Tell Us When To Go. His fiction has appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Barcelona Review and more. He teaches English at College of San Mateo, and lives in the Bay Area with his wife and son.

Reviews

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this can’t put down novel, the reader finds that San Francisco can birth an underground hip-hop movement encapsulated by the title song and give rise to the prosaic navel-gazing startup world where execs arrange for Cake (the band) to play at their birthday party. However, coexistence is a different matter from creation. How can a city, let alone a friendship, maintain itself while it contains opposing value systems?


My full review here:

https://www.fivesouth.net/post/review...

[Zack Ruskin · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review for the San Francisco Chronicle: https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/book...

[Suzy Eynon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reviewed at The Masters Review
https://mastersreview.com/book-review...

[Betty Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two BFFs from college end up in San Francisco—Cole, who is nursing a painful rejection of his boyhood love and once-possible future career as a professional baseball pitcher and Isaac, who is being sucked into the culture of a technology company that feeds its growing appetite through doublespeak and manipulation of its young employees. This odd pairing of friends results in hilarious conversations and points of view. DeAndreis has captured the social pains of a city that is overtaken by the new corporate giant, causing rents to spiral, homelessness to increase exponentially and price gauging by stores because tech workers don’t blink at the price tags. Isaac starts to detach from the empathy that drives Cole to take a teaching job. Cole connects with a young girl who is tougher than his baseball bat and is on the edge of being expelled from high school. “Tell Us When To Go” is a closeup look into an inner city classroom filled with young students who have had difficult backgrounds both in school and at home. When teacher and student form a friendship and learn from each other, DeAndreis shows us that there is hope. A must read filled with humor, reality and hope.

[Jeramy Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read novel, especially for Bay Area residents concerned with tech's impact on our region and those troubled by the state of our public education system. Emil deftly, and often humorously, touches on topics ranging from class tensions, race relations, and existentialism, and he garners a real investment in the characters. And, of course, there is a huge payoff at the novel's conclusion.

[Keeley Nickelson Greenfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

I guess I’ll give this 2.5 stars because it was slightly better than the book I gave 2 stars. I bought this book to support a local bookstore and a local author but I am not sure anything even happened in this book. If it was supposed to be satire I didn’t get it.

[Jordy Bach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The characters feel real and San Francisco comes to life through their narration. The modern teenager dialect, easy to get wrong, is written to perfection. As an sf native and giants baseball fan, this book hits all the right notes.

[Susie O · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read that takes place in SF back in the early 2010’s about friendship, growing up and figuring out who are ya. Best part was being able to picture all the Bay Area settings/locations

[elsie · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was ok

[Ethan Yan · Rating 5 out of 5]

He’s my former baseball coach!

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entertaining read from start to finish. Highly recommend this to anyone looking for the next book to draw them in. The writing style and character development makes this story feel comfortably familiar and distinctly different at the same time. It's infrequent that I find myself laughing out loud and feeling real emotions within a few pages of one another. This book hits all the marks and I can't wait to see what Emil comes up with next.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book and couldn't put it down! Its chronicle of two young men navigating post-college life after the 2008 recession really resonated with me, even though I am a couple decades older. DeAndreis's portrayal of male friendship is moving, and he captures what it was like to live in SF in that time period beautifully--and from two distinctly different perspectives that both feel very real. The psychology of the baseball woven through it was also fascinating. Highly recommended!

[Corin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had so much fun reading this book. It captures in an interesting way a time period in San Francisco I lived through, when tech was taking over the city and those that worked in the glittering world of tech felt a world away from those of us that worked with needy populations in schools. When those worlds met it was just as cringy as DeAndreis depicts in this book so well.
Another thing the book depicts realistically and humanely is that time period in life right after college (or in Cole's case, not finishing college) where we are all a little lost, still piecing together work and social identities that we thought we had already figured out.
The book does these things realistically and comically and with spot on dialogue. I really enjoyed this read.

[Paul Wilner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent work, by a rising young Bay Area talent. My interview with Emil, for the Nob Hill Gazette, is linked below:

https://www.nobhillgazette.com/the_cu...