Reward System

For fans of Patricia Lockwood and Ben Lerner, audacious fictions of a generation wondering: what now? 'Reward System is an exhilarating and beautiful book by an extraordinarily gifted writer. Reading these stories, I found myself thinking newly and differently about contemporary life.' SALLY ROONEY Julia has landed a fresh start - at a 'pan-European' restaurant. 'Imagine that,' says her mother. 'I'm imagining.' Nick is flirting with sobriety and nobody else. Did you know: adults his age are now more likely to live with their parents than a romantic partner? Life should have started to take shape by now - but instead we're trying on new versions of ourselves, swiping left and right, searching for a convincing answer to that question: 'What do you do?' Reward System is a set of ultra-contemporary and electrifyingly fresh fictions about a generation of the cusp; the story of two people enmeshed in Zooms and lockdowns, loneliness and love.

Jem Calder was born in Cambridge, and lives and works in London. His fiction has been published in The Stinging Fly and Granta. Reward System is his first book.