This debut about love, sex and wellness in the digital age is harsh and fun
I recently attended a book event at which an author who was born in the 1990s spoke of a dubious sense that fiction of her generation was expected to deliver “tidings from the internet” to older readers. I thought of this again as I read Mariel Franklin’s debut novel Bonding, a fast, harsh, smart and fun satire of contemporary tech elites. Thirtysomething Londoner Mary loses her job at a lifestyle app called Healthify and is hired by her ex, Lara, founder of Openr, a dating app. Lara is a gorgeous monster: wealthy, self-serving, dressed in vintage Celine and Saint Laurent. She positions Openr as a disruptor: it takes a progressive attitude to alternative modes of sexuality, from niche fetish to abstinence, and telegraphs a firm ethical position that works to conceal the fact that it exists to capitalise on its “community”. Meanwhile Mary enters, tentatively, into a hot but conventional relationship with a marketing executive, Tom. Tom works on Eudaxa, a novel pharmaceutical medication which is trailed as a pill to end unhappiness.
Bonding is set during Rishi Sunak’s premiership, against a backdrop of social fragmentation and aggression on the streets. It follows the planning and launch of Eudaxa and the nascent intimacy between Mary and Tom. The connection they feel with one another sits uneasily with the stories of sexual liberation and self-determination on which their professional lives are hung. “I think we both wanted out on some ambient level.” Bonding is described on the jacket as a “uniquely modern” story of “our digital age”, marketed with the tagline, “a beach read with big ideas”. That is a lot to ask, but it doesn’t disappoint. The story moves swiftly and delivers fast-flowing takes on data, pharma, ageing, connectivity; what people want, how people love, and how the internet changes everything. It’s pacy but also always analytical. Holding both of those things together feels like an expression of respect for the reader.
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