Volume VI Special Issue II February 2026

Name of Author : Dr. S. Sudha

Title of the paper : Magical Realism and the Echo of Absence: Communication in Rainbow Rowells Landline

Abstract: Rainbow Rowells Landline 2014 explores marital breakdown, emotional distance, and the fragile nature of communication through an unconventional yet restrained magical device. A mysterious landline phone allows the protagonist, Georgie McCool, to talk with her husband, Neal, in the past, before their relationship began to fall apart. This paper argues that Rowell uses magical realism not as pure fantasy, but as a narrative tool to make emotional absence and communication failure tangible. Drawing on theories of magical realism by Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris, along with Mikhail Bakhtins ideas of chronotope and dialogism, the paper considers how the novel depicts absence as a form of presence. Through fractured temporality, dialogic recovery, and emotional reflection, Landline shows how unspoken truths influence close relationships. The magical phone becomes a symbolic space where communication is both restored and reimagined, implying that absence can resonate just as strongly as presence in human connection.

Keywords : Magical realism, communication, chronotope, dialogism, Rainbow Rowell, Landline

DOI :

Page Number : 12-14