Sarah SmithAuthor Catherine Lacey will promote her new book “The Answers” for Thacker Mountain Radio Hour 6 p.m. Thursday at Square Books.
“The Answers” is a complex story about love, relationships and illness. It follows Mary, a woman dealing with an illness that doctors aren’t quite sure how to identify. In order to curb the cost of a recovery program, she signs up for something called the “girlfriend experiment.”
“Everyone at one point or another has been ill and unsure of what’s wrong,” Lacey said. “I think that’s one of the most humanizing states one can be in.”
Lacey’s inspiration for the girlfriend experiment was the phase that people go through while trying to find a perfect or foolproof relationship.
“It seems to me that most people go through a phase in which they try to create or find some sort of ideal relationship,” Lacey said. “I had this idea of a man surrounding himself with a team of women who could fulfill those roles for him.”
In the girlfriend experiment, A-listers are given multiple girlfriends, one for every need in their life, from the kitchen girlfriend to the emotional girl to the girlfriend in the bedroom.
Mary is employed as the “emotional girlfriend” to actor Kurt Sky. He is set on finding the perfect relationship, even if he’s paying for it and keeping up various relationships.
“She becomes involved in an experiment in an attempt to scientifically control and provide for the need for interpersonal relationships,” Lyn Roberts, manager of Square Books, said.
Roberts said she would recommend “The Answers” to anyone “who appreciates good writing and beautiful use of language.”
She describes Lacey’s latest release as “thought-provoking” and something that will “stay with the reader for some time after the last page has been turned.”
Lacey said she aims to transform as a thinker and artist in her position as writer-in-residence at the university, where she teaches workshops each semester, one to graduate students and another to undergraduate students.
