Smartphones aren’t nearly as intrusive in today’s novels as they are in our daily realities. I suspect we don’t want our fictional counterparts to stare at their phones as much as we do.
Mobile technology can disrupt plot and date fiction fast, so some novelists opt to set their stories in times or places beyond its reach. Madeleine Ryan’s solution in The Knowing is simpler. Her protagonist, Camille, lives in present-day country Victoria, commuting to a high-end floristry in Melbourne. But on the particular Valentine’s Day the novel spans, Camille has left her phone at home.
