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1-Page Summary of Landline

Overall Summary

Landline (2014), a science-fiction novel by Rainbow Rowell, is about a woman who realizes she can call her husband’s younger self through their landline. Critics have classified the book as adult fiction. It won the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fiction Book of the Year in 2014.

Georgie McCool is a successful thirty-seven-year-old sitcom writer on the hit television series Jeff’d Up. She stays at home with her two daughters while her husband works to support them since she makes enough money from her job. Although Georgie is happy that they can afford nice things, she dreams of producing a pilot with her writing partner Seth, who has been best friends with her since college. He feels like Neil takes up too much of Georgie’s time, preventing him from being the great writer he was meant to be.

A week before Christmas, Georgie and Seth finally get a chance to produce the pilot of their dreams. Unfortunately, they only have a few days to do it, but Georgie has promised Neil that she’ll go with him and his daughters to Omaha for the holidays. She’s torn between her desire to be with her family and her need to work on the script; however, in the end she decides not go with them because she wants so badly for this project to succeed. Neil leaves upset because he knows how much this means to Georgie; however, he also respects what she is doing by staying behind. Before they leave for Omaha, Georgie makes Neil promise that he will call when they land in Omaha so that she can talk about everything later.

After talking with Neil, Georgie goes straight to work on the pilot script she’s working on. However, she misses the call that he asked her to make for him. Feeling anxious and uncertain about her marriage, Georgie visits her mother in Los Angeles who is under the impression that they’re getting a divorce. For some reason, Georgie tries calling Neil from her cell phone but it seems like he’s avoiding her calls. In desperation, Georgie uses a rotary phone in their old bedroom to call Neil again but when she does this he answers as if time has been rewound and it’s 1998 again when they first met and are 22 years old together.

Georgie remembers the beginning of her relationship with Neil. Georgie and Seth were best friends at ULA, where they wrote for The Spoon humor magazine. While Seth was in love with Georgie, she thought of him as just a friend. One day, Georgie met Neil, who became another new cartoonist at the magazine. They instantly fell in love with each other and started dating. This made Seth very jealous because he secretly loved Georgie himself. During winter break one year, Georgie and Neil had a fight that caused them to go their separate ways for Christmas; however, when Neil came back from Omaha alone after this holiday trip home without his girlfriend (Georgie), he proposed to her out of nowhere! She said yes right away because she really liked him but didn’t know what else to do since it seemed like such an important decision!

In the present, Georgie realizes that Neil has traveled back in time. At first, she’s worried about causing a rift in space-time and almost goes insane thinking about it. However, after realizing how much she misses him, she decides to keep talking to 22-year-old Neil on the phone. After understanding this situation better, Georgie realizes that all of her conversations with 22 year old Neil were what convinced him to propose during his winter break from college.

Touched by the realization that Georgie would rather be with her family than pursue a pilot career, she leaves Seth to go back home. She takes a plane ride and struggles in the snow while trying to find someone who can take her to Neil’s mother’s house. Cather and Levi, two characters from Rowell’s previous novel, give her a ride on their way there. Georgie is relieved when she sees both of her daughters safe at home; however, she resolves that it’s time for her and Neil to work on their marriage.