The Quiet Ones: A Novel

During a regular shift at the call center, Alvin Estrada discovers a way to embezzle money from the American telecom giant for which he mans the phones. Soon a couple of friends join in. and the operations proceeds smoothly up until they quit, vowing to take the secret to their graves. A month later, a phone call at 4 in the morning tells Alvin that the police are on their way.   At once a workplace novel and a meditation on history and globalization, The Quiet Ones is a grimly humorous take on a soul-sapping, multi-billion-dollar industry. In interlocking narratives, it explores lives rendered mute by irate callers, scripted apologies, and life's menial violence, but which manage to take back every now and then, just as long as the Mute button is firmly pressed.     "[ The Quiet Ones ] begins like a thriller: a man in an airport, a suspicious black bag, the police not far behind. . . But swiftly, the pretense of a crime story [...]is discarded. What unfolds is a tale at once intimate and sprawling, in which the minutiae matter just as much as the most prominent plot points."   - Philippine Daily Inquirer   "A witty, barbed account of a call center full of misfits, attempting to navigate a world that has increasingly little to offer them. . . An impressive, sure-footed debut, full of irreverence and vigor."   - Jeremy Tiang