Follow this link to join Wiley for a conversation with Will Johnson, author of If and When I Call and a musician and songwriter who has played in the bands Centro-matic, South San Gabriel, Marie/Lepanto, Overseas, New Multitudes, and Monsters of Folk.

Between interstates and county lines, life in rural Missouri unfolds in a progression of simple moments that carry the weight of every hard thing gone by. Parker and Melinda are searching for themselves in the hollows of their estranged marriage. Parker, haunted by the demons of addiction, lives every moment at the edge of an undiagnosed disorder — a darkness that steals his awareness and throws him into convulsions. Melinda, on an odyssey of her own, knows Parker's struggles all too well, and as they try to help their teenage son come to terms with their lives apart, they have only their memories of a brighter life to get by.

Haunting and lyrical, Johnson's powerful debut is a hymn to the lives we overlook in the quiet places around us. And how close we are to living them ourselves.