Cassie McCullagh

And there's a theme emerging in the show today.

Research, PhDs, animals.

In Audrey Shulman's novel, Theory of Bastards, Frankie is an acclaimed academic and evolutionary biologist who attracts major research grants.

Completely different writing styles.

So the research and academic project in this novel, Theory of Bastards, is really at the centre of the novel in terms of the narrative and the plot, in the first half of the book at least.

So Felicity, tell us about the research facility we visit.

So where are we in this novel?

But we're also in a very near future place.

But Frankie herself is quite an interesting character.

At the start of the book, I thought she was a lot older than she was and then was surprised to realise she's only in her early 30s.

And that's because she presents at first as a woman with a disability and then you realise that she's a woman who's spent her life defined by pain.

So what's going on with her?

Well, there's a whole lot in that.

And it goes back just to what Felicity was saying about the way that Audrey Shulman writes about bodies and sexuality and ideas.

Because I think what she's doing is taking on the way in which so much evolutionary biology...

is actually really sexist and old-fashioned and is about searching for all sorts of codified behaviour.

It often drives me nuts, some of the questions that some types of scientists ask about women's behaviour in particular.

So she's got this character who's interested in women's desire.

and sexuality.

And she's exploring it by looking at these bonobos who have a cooperative matriarchal society and they play it out by having an awful lot of sex.