ELLE book club

If you like The Bachelor, you’ll love Catherine Lacey’s new novel The Answers

Attention Bachelor fans: this new novel is for you.

NAMED ONE OF GRANTA’S BEST YOUNG AMERICAN

NOVELISTS, Catherine Lacey has just released her much-anticipated second novel, The Answers ($27.99, Granta). It follows the plight of the debt-ridden and chronically pained Mary, whose mystery disease is becoming increasingly unbearable – and she increasingly desperate for a cure. She becomes hooked on the New Age ways of an alternative health practitioner named Ed, but his promise of a fix doesn’t come cheap. To help foot the bill, Mary responds to an ambiguous job ad and before she knows it, has been recruited to The Girlfriend Experiment (GX), a Bachelor-style social experiment created by a rich actor who’s frustrated by his inability to find a lasting connection with a woman. Mary is assigned the role of the Emotional Girlfriend to Kurt, but there’s also the Intellectual Girlfriend, Mundanity Girlfriend and the Maternal Girlfriend, among others. With her generous salary, Mary’s also given a list of pre-approved Signs of Affection and a handbook of odd requests. As the GX progresses, Kurt and the Girlfriends’ search for answers about love leads them further down a complex rabbit hole – making for an irreverent take on common affairs of the heart and the way our identity can shapeshift as we navigate relationships. This is the latest instalment of the

ELLE Book Club, a place where each month we recommend one read we know you’ll love. To win a copy of this one, head to Elle.com.au/win, and to read an extract, turn to p78.