A Tell Me Again sample
Two Languages, a Grandson Asking
Rafael Villalobos is an example, not a customer. We’ve written him to show you what the book does, because we’d rather do that than describe it.
Born 1948, Zacapa, Guatemala · came to Houston in 1971, aged twenty-three · ran his own drywall crew for twenty-six years · commissioned by his grandson, Marcus, 26
Two Answers, One Afternoon
A grandson gets an answer his own father never had. That isn’t sentiment — a grandchild carries less freight than a child, and isn’t owed an explanation for the last forty years.
Full Interview
“What did you play when there was nothing to do?”
“Chamuscas. Football in the street — but that is not the word. A chamusca is a game nobody organised. You went out and there was one happening already. Somebody’s ball, somebody’s shoes for the goal. I have tried to explain this to your father and he says ‘pickup game.’ It is not a pickup game. Nobody arranged it. It was just there, like weather.”
“Was there a time you thought things would not come right?”
“The second year in Houston. I had work but nothing on paper that was any good, and I hurt my hand on a job and could not go to anybody about it. I sat in a room on Telephone Road for eleven days. I did not call my mother because the call was four dollars and I did not have four dollars.”
“Your grandmother does not know this. Your father does not know this. I am telling you because you asked me, and because it was fifty years ago — and because you are the one who asked.”
The Written Story
Before Houston there were chamuscas. Rafael is precise about the word, because his son translates it as “pickup game” and that is not what it was. A chamusca is a game nobody organised. You went out into the street in Zacapa and one was already happening — somebody’s ball, somebody’s shoes marking the goal. Nobody arranged it. It was simply there, he says, like weather.
He was twenty-three when he came, and the second year was the one that nearly turned him round. He had work and nothing on paper worth having. He hurt his hand on a job and there was nobody he could take it to. He sat in a room on Telephone Road for eleven days.
He did not telephone his mother. The call was four dollars and he did not have four dollars.
He has not told his wife this, and he has not told his son. He told his grandson, at a kitchen table in 2026, and gave three reasons: that he was asked, that it was fifty years ago, and that it was Marcus who asked.
More Samples
Four other lives, the same set of questions.
- A Working Life — Walter Nowak, thirty-four years on the line.
- A Courtship — Peggy Whitfield, married in 1959.
- A Childhood in Another Country — Beverley Clarke, Jamaica to Birmingham.
- What If Someone Doesn’t Want to Answer — Joan Petrie, and the questions that go unanswered.
Every book starts the same way: you choose twenty-five questions once, from eight categories and one of your own. What comes back depends on who you’re asking and whether they’ll write.