Bachelor

Andrew Palmer's first novel follows a narrator who, after splitting from the woman he was nearly going to marry, returns to the Iowa town where he grew up to look after a family friend's house. A channel surfed by accident and a renewed exchange with an old friend draw him into two preoccupations at once: the dating show The Bachelor and John Berryman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet.

As he slowly recovers, both fixations deepen, and it becomes harder to tell the scripted world of television from ordinary life. He ends up writing to several possible romantic partners and joins a group outing that he later regrets, all while trying to make sense of where his life has led.

The book is a coming-of-age story about finding one's footing in love and in art. It asks whether fame can still offer a sense of salvation, whether romantic relationships can, and where entertainment ends and reality begins, given that a reality show can have two dozen women falling for one man in six weeks. It also wonders why people keep repeating the same mistakes in love and in life.