[3] In several interviews, Phillips has stated he has been a child actor,[4] a jazz musician,[5] a speechwriter, an advertising copywriter for medical devices, and a "dismally failed entrepreneur.

Prague, despite its title, is set almost entirely in Budapest, Hungary, primarily in 1990, with an interlude detailing several previous generations of Hungarian history, from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy through the First and Second World Wars.

The structure of the novel allows for various tales to be interwoven, producing an ensemble portrait of them and their adopted city, just recovering from decades of Communism, fascism, and war.

The novel was well received commercially and critically, winning Phillips a 2003 Los Angeles Times/Art Seidenbaum Award for Best First Fiction,[9] as well as other honors.

[11] Angelica is superficially a Victorian ghost story,[12] and won Phillips comparisons to Henry James, Vladimir Nabokov, and Stephen King.

[13] In the novel, the same events are retold four times from four different perspectives, each section casting doubt on the version that came before, until the reader is left to sort truth from fantasy on his or her own.

Phillips' fourth novel tells the story of a middle-aged man's pursuit of a young woman, an Irish pop singer performing in a bar.