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Sign up todayThe Answers
Narrator
Megan Tusing
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Length
9 hours 41 minutes
Language
English
In Catherine Lacey’s ambitious second novel we are introduced to Mary, a young woman living in New York City struggling with a body that has betrayed her. All but paralyzed with pain, Mary seeks relief from a New Age-y treatment called Pneuma Adaptive Kinesthesia, PAKing for short. And, remarkably, it works.
But PAKing is expensive and Mary is broke. So she scours Craigslist for fast-cash jobs and finds the “Girlfriend Experiment,” the brainchild of an eccentric and narcissistic actor determined to find the perfect relationship—even if it means paying women to fill different roles. Mary is hired as the “emotional girlfriend”—certainly better than the “anger girlfriend” or the “maternal girlfriend”—and is pulled into an ego-driven and messy attempt at human connection.
Told in Lacey’s signature spiraling prose, The Answers is full of singular yet universal insights. It is a gorgeous hybrid of the plot- and idea-driven novel that will leave you reeling.
Catherine Lacey is the author of the novels Pew, Nobody Is Ever Missing and The Answers and the short-story collection Certain American States. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Award, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship. She was a finalist for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and was named one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists. Her essays and short fiction have appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, New York Times, The Believer, and elsewhere.
Megan Tusing is an actor and audiobook narrator based in New York City. She developed a love of storytelling and a passion for language at a young age when first introduced to William Shakespeare, which eventually led her to pursue a career in acting. She has appeared on stage, in films, and on such television programs as Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order: CI, Blue Bloods, and Person of Interest. She holds a BA in theater from James Madison University and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA.
Reviews
“A sparkling satire of our era of big data.”
“ A darkly funny, tartly feminist look at the tender state of our bodies and souls in the Information Age…[and] the absurdity of a culture that persists in thinking that enlightenment is a matter of the right purchase, hashtag, or Google search.”
“Funny and eerie and idea-dense—a flavor combination that turns out to be addictive.”
“The best narrators disappear as you listen. The voice blends so smoothly with the story as the actor skillfully creates characters, manages emotions, and paces drama that the listeners no longer notice they are being red to. Megan Tusing accomplished just this in Catherine Lacey’s second novel The Answers.”
“A surprisingly compelling puzzle of a plot involving the Girlfriend Experiment and the way it manipulates its subjects.”
"[A] rumination on what we miss and miss out on when our connections to other human beings are synthetic.”
“Lacey writes loneliness and solitude with a profound depth.”
“Lacey’s eerily brilliant second novel serves as both a disquieting, high-concept cautionary tale and a dark satire about fame, love, abuse, and alienation. If that doesn’t speak to 2017, we don’t know what does.”
“Digs into the choppy turf beneath a woman’s relationship to her body, her identity, and her search for balance between independence and meaningful relationships…Lacey doesn’t give us answers, but she sure gives us a wild story with a memorable protagonist.”
“A remarkable novel…Lacey displays an exceptional ability to articulate the elusiveness of knowing others, as well as the desire to find meaning and trust within.”
“Startling and stunning and compulsively strange…a haunting investigation into the nature of love…As unexpected as it is rich.”
“Surreal, thought-provoking, and intriguingly untidy.”
“Lacey gives her story a fresh, millennial spin in this quirky look at contemporary society.”
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