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Summary
Summary
In Catherine Lacey's ambitious second novel we are introduced to Mary, a young woman living in New York City and struggling to cope with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, Mary seeks relief from a New Agey treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works. But PAKing is prohibitively expensive and Mary is dead broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds herself applying for the "Girlfriend Experiment," the brainchild of an eccentric and narcissistic actor, Kurt Sky, who is determined to find the perfect relationship-even if that means paying different women to fulfill distinctive roles. Mary is hired as the "Emotional Girlfriend"-certainly better than the "Anger Girlfriend" or the "Maternal Girlfriend"-and is pulled into Kurt's ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection. Told in her signature spiraling prose, The Answers is full of the singular yet universal insights readers have come to expect from Lacey. It is a gorgeous hybrid of the plot- and the idea-driven novel that will leave you reeling.
Author Notes
Catherine Lacey's title Nobody is Ever Missing made the New Zealand Best Seller List in 2015.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Lacey's (Nobody Is Ever Missing) remarkable novel, Mary has "spent a year suffering undiagnosable illnesses" when she finds a strange treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, which immediately helps. The problem is Mary's broke, so she answers a high-paying Craigslist ad and soon ends up participating in überfamous actor Kurt Sky's so-called Girlfriend Experiment. The goal of the experiment is to find out whether a perfect relationship can be achieved if each of many girlfriends serves a single role for Kurt. As the Emotional Girlfriend, Mary is to listen "to Kurt talk while remaining fully engaged by asking questions," to send texts to him, and to eventually cry in front of him. She is told "sexual intimacy will not be expected of the Emotional Girlfriend" since Kurt has the Intimacy Team for that purpose. While Kurt becomes more and more intrigued by the "totally unpretentious" Mary in his attempt to find out "How to best love?", the truth of the experiment comes to light. The novel examines the unreliability of our own bodies and emotions (at one point, the experiment's sensors mistakenly register Mary's feeling of obligation as a feeling of love), as well as our detachment from others-that dark gap between what someone does and what someone actually means to do. Mary is trying to trust her body through Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, while Kurt's Anger Girlfriend, Ashley, one of the best characters in the novel, only trusts her anger: her hate is "gleeful and all-consuming and an unlikely companion through her days." Lacey displays an exceptional ability to articulate the elusiveness of knowing others, as well as the desire to find meaning and trust within. Agent: Jin Auh, Wylie Agency. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
In Lacey's ambitious second novel, after Nobody Is Ever Missing (2014), sometimes-narrator Mary signs on to two odd regimens, neither of which she knows much about, at around the same time. The first is an unclassifiable therapy, recommended by her friend, called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, or PAKing. Immediately, the chronic pain that's been fraying her betraying body for ages begins to abate. Mary's other curiosity is the second job she, already deeply in debt, picks up to pay for the incredibly expensive PAKing sessions: she's hired, and paid highly, to be the Emotional Girlfriend of famous actor Kurt Sky as part of the elaborate, fantastical Girlfriend Experiment to perfect and simplify romantic relationships and extend the feeling of limerence, or falling in love. Through her characters' thoughts, most notably those of Mary and the other Girlfriends women who are constantly directed, surveyed, and evaluated Lacey proves herself to be a writer of finely tuned perceptions who creates sprawling psyches. For fans of surreal, thought-provoking, and intriguingly untidy literary fiction.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THE BOOK THAT CHANGED AMERICA: How Darwin's Theory of Evolution Ignited a Nation, by Randall Fuller. (Penguin, $18.) Fuller's lively account focuses on the responses of a group of New England intellectuals to Darwin's "On the Origin of Species." The book is perhaps most surprising on the subject of Thoreau, for whom Darwin's writings would prove influential. MANHATTAN BEACH, by Jennifer Egan. (Scribner, $17.) In a follow-up to her novel "A Visit From the Goon Squad," Egan tells the story of a Brooklyn Navy Yards worker during World War II. The Times critic Dwight Garner called it "an old-fashioned page turner, tweaked by this witty and sophisticated writer so that you sometimes feel she has retrofitted sleek new engines inside a craft owned for too long by James Jones and Herman Wouk." RETURN TO GLORY: The Story of Ford's Revival and Victory at the Toughest Race in the World, by Matthew DeBord. (Grove, $16.) Over 50 years ago, a Ford heir set out to win Le Mans, the dangerous race across France's backroads. In 2016, the company returned again to the high-stakes course; DeBord recounts the designers and drivers behind the renewed push, and tells the story of Ford's triumphs. THE ANSWERS, by Catherine Lacey. (Picador, $16.) To pay for her unconvetional physical therapy, a woman becomes part of an actor's latest project: to design the perfect partner, piece by piece. The woman serves as an "Emotional Girlfriend," agreeing to leave a toothbrush at his house, give him keys to her place, affirm his views and send him pithy texts. Molly Young, our reviewer, wrote that the story is "funny and eerie and idea-dense - a flavor combination that turns out to be addictive." MY LOVELY WIFE IN THE PSYCH WARD: A MEMOIR, by Mark Lukach. (Harper Wave/HarperCollins, $15.99.) Three years into their marriage, the author's wife suffers a psychotic breakdown, setting in motion a nightmarish cycle of major depressive states, psychosis and nearly round-the-clock care. Lukach's voice - unsparing and even ruthless, but grounded in love - helps the book vault past the stereotype of an illness memoir. UNDERGROUND FUGUE, by Margot Singer. (Melville House, $16.99.) In this debut novel, the lives of four Londoners become entwined amid the terrorist attacks of 2005. Esther is caring for her dying mother, and strikes up a friendship with her neighbors, an Iranian scientist and his son, Amir. But her paranoia about Amir threatens to derail not only their friendship but the families' futures.
Kirkus Review
Startling and stunning and compulsively strange, Lacey's (The Art of the Affair, 2017, etc.) sophomore novel is a haunting investigation into the nature of love."I'd run out of options," reflects Mary Parsons, a young woman with a haunted past. "That's how these things usually happen." After a year and a half overcome with sickening, inexplicable painheadaches, back aches, strange lumps, broken ribsMary is desperate for relief in any form she can find it. And she does find it, in something called Pneuma Adaptive KinesthesiaPAKing, for short. But while searching for a second job to pay for the treatment ("neuro-physio-chi bodywork" is pricey), Mary stumbles upon a mysterious ad for a high-paying, low-time-commitment "income-generating experience." After several increasingly bizarre interviews, she finds herself embroiled in narcissistic actor Kurt Sky's "Girlfriend Experiment"a supposedly scientific inquiry designed to uncover and perfect the mechanisms of romantic love. Mary will be playing the role (though it is not, the researchers are clear, an acting job) of "Emotional Girlfriend," one of a cadre of themed GirlfriendsAnger Girlfriend, Maternal Girlfriend, Intellectual Girlfriendeach assigned to handle a single facet of partnership. Her job: listen, ask questions, touch the actor's hand at appropriate intervals. After five weeks, exchange keys; after two to four months, say "I love you" after "an emotionally intimate moment." Observant and almost pathologically self-contained, Mary is an unusually good fit for the gig. But when Kurt's attachment intensifies, Mary becomes increasingly entangled in his unsettling quest as the boundaries between them grow increasingly less stable. Far from distilling love, the experiment only complicates it, as the possibility of perfect connection seems to slip ever further out of reach. With otherworldly precision and subtle wit, Lacey creates a gently surreal dreamscape that's both intoxicating and profound. A singular novel; as unexpected as it is rich. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Mary Parsons is a lonely young woman trying to find her way in a cold world after a terrible childhood. This is certainly a well-worn theme in fiction, but Lacey (Nobody Is Ever Missing) gives her story a fresh, Millennial spin in this quirky look at contemporary society. Struggling to make it in New York City, Mary is further hampered by crippling health problems that seem incurable. She finds relief in a treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, or PAKing, but these cures are prohibitively expensive. To pay for her much-needed therapy, she discovers a job on Craigslist for a "Girlfriend Experiment." This is a grandiose project by the self-absorbed actor Kurt Sky, who hopes to land the perfect romance by paying several women to fulfill different roles in his life. Mary is hired to be the "Emotional Girlfriend" and soon gets more than she bargained. Will this strange turn provide her with the answers she's looking for or only pose more questions? VERDICT Recommended for those who appreciate thought-provoking and imaginative literary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 12/19/16.]--Leslie Patterson, Rehoboth, MA © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
