A Novel
The In-Law Call
Thomas Avery
The system calls it dignity. The families call it Sunday.
The Story
It works like this: When someone turns seventy-five, the Dignity Commission, a government-run agency, assigns their Compassion Companion. Not their child. Their child’s spouse. Their in-law. The Companion holds a sixteen-digit code that they can enter into an online portal. The code tells the Dignity Commission that the family has decided it is time for their parent-in-law to go. Designed to curb the endless costs of dementia in old age, the law gives Companions the ultimate power over their in-laws. Is this law cruel or kind?
Not their child. Their child’s spouse. The person closest to the family who isn’t quite of it. The Companion holds a sixteen-digit code, a portal login, and a footer on every page that reads Ready to begin the process?
Told in alternating chapters, The In-Law Call follows two families through the architecture of an impossible system — the orientations, the assessments, the 2 a.m. forums, and the kitchens where the real conversations happen.
Julie & Gloria
Julie has spent sixteen years navigating her mother-in-law — Gloria, retired judge, sharp as a tack. Now Gloria has turned seventy-five, and Julie holds the code. She also can’t tell whether anything is happening to Gloria at all.
Marco & Arturo
Marco has spent fifteen years of Sundays in Arturo’s kitchen, learning the sauce. Now his father-in-law is losing words — a few here and there, nothing that matters yet — and the assessment scores are dropping seven points at a time. Marco knows what that math means.
“An AI can learn the words. It can’t learn the garlic.”
Marco Castillo
Inside the Book
If I open it, I’m the person who can end Gloria Bergman’s life.
Julie · Chapter One
You must be the teacher. Good. We need more teachers. Come in, it’s almost ready.
Arturo · Chapter Two
If the line is clear, I want you to make the call.
Arturo · Chapter Eighteen
The footer of every page is an exit ramp.
Julie · Chapter Eleven
For Readers Of
A novel with more love and more laughs than its premise lets on
Step Inside the World
Visit the Dignity Commission
The system in the novel has a website. It’s soft, and helpful, and lilac, and it will offer to let you take the Clarity Assessment yourself. Find out what number the machine gives you.
Enter dignitycommission.com →A fictional government portal, built from the pages of the book.
Get the Book
Available now in paperback, hardcover & ebook
The In-Law Call is out. Kindle, paperback, and hardcover editions are on Amazon, and Kindle Unlimited members can read it free.
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