Electrifying, sharp, and darkly funny, Mariel Franklin's first novel, Bonding, is a story of sex, tech, and pharmaceuticals in the tangle of our digital age.
Adrift in her early thirties, Mary is exhausted by an endless cycle of casual relationships and unstable work. When she loses her job, she books a spontaneous trip to Ibiza and meets Tom, a brilliant chemist on the verge of launching a new antidepressant: a drug called Eudaxa that claims to be able to cure the anxieties of modern life. Back in London, Mary runs into the volatile and driven Lara, who has channeled her ambitions into Openr, an innovative dating app designed to revolutionize the industry. Mary and Lara have a complicated past, and as Mary begins working for Openr and falling for Tom, tech and pharma collide with shocking consequences, forcing her to question what love and success mean in a world that is hurtling out of control. Mariel Franklin lives and works in London. She has an MA in English from Edinburgh University and later went on to study fine art at Goldsmiths. After graduating, she spent several years working in data administration in the tech industry. Bonding is her first novel.
"Bonding is that rare debut that's as smart as it is stylish . . . But it goes beyond simple 'tech satire.' To me, this novel is a critique of a whole society, one hollowed out by neoliberal deregulation and manipulated by algorithms. Somehow, it's also very funny and sexy. The whole package."
-Zadie Smith, author of The Fraud, in The Guardian
"As relishable as it is terrifying, Bonding is an audacious, hot, deeply uncomfortable, and genuinely thrilling deep-dive into the dystopian future in which we now live."
-Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes
"Fast, harsh, smart, and fun."
-Daisy Hildyard, The Guardian
"Franklin's agile, thought-provoking tale throbs with ideas, fears, and cautions."
-Suzi Feay, Financial Times
"So obviously impressive . . . With its dissident intelligence and its comprehensive vision of a devastated social sphere, Mariel Franklin's Bonding is the work of an author whose importance already feels assured."
-Rob Doyle, The Observer
"This smart, disturbing debut reads like a 19th-century novel of manners for the digital age . . . Franklin has written one of the most stimulating novels I have read."
-Johanna Thomas-Corr, The Times (UK)
