The Edible Woman Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tester of electric toothbrushes

Marian works for Seymour Surveys, a market research company; her job is to edit questionnaires and make them more accessible. She met Ainsley through a friend of a friend while looking for a flatmate. Ainsley has a temporary job at a toothbrush company, testing defective electric toothbrushes, but really wants to work in an art gallery, in the hope of meeting artists.

She also has a psychology degree and is obsessed with having a baby.

Answer: Makes you feel like a real man

Mrs Bogue, Marian's boss, asks her to do some interviews regarding Moose Beer, as they're short-staffed and need the results of the survey soon. Marian's job is to visit men of a certain demographic and ask them to phone a number which plays an advert for Moose Beer.

The advert features the above phrases, and she then has to ask the test subject what he thinks of the phrases. One of the houses she visits turns out to be owned by a fundamentalist Christian who gives her temperance pamphlets. Another house is a student flat where Duncan, one of the students, provides some very off-the-wall answers to the questionnaire, before eventually admitting that he can't be bothered with the rest of the questions.

Answer: Under the bed

Len has returned from England after he ran into trouble with an underage girl. He meets Marian and Peter for a drink, as well as Ainsley, much to Marian's annoyance. Ainsley dresses and acts like a naive teenage girl in the hope of attracting Len, who she sees as a potential father for her baby. Marian runs off and Peter finds her.

When they go back to Len's flat, Marian feels left out by Len and Peter's conversation about cameras and hides under a bed. The men help her out from under the bed and she leaves in a rage, but Peter catches up with her again and they have an argument. Peter drives drunkenly over someone's lawn, frightening Marian.

When they get home, he proposes to her.

Answer: At the launderette

Marian takes a load of laundry to wash, but realises she's forgotten the soap. Duncan lends her some and she recognises him from the beer interview. He says he likes to go to the launderette and watch the clothes in the machines, as he always knows what to expect.

He talks incessantly about his housemates. When he and Marian leave the launderette, they kiss. (Duncan and Marian do bump into each other in the cinema, but that happens later on.) Being with Duncan makes Marian start to have doubts about her relationship with Peter, although Duncan himself shows little interest in her romantically.

Answer: Hang a tie from the bedroom doorknob

Marian is supposed to be going out for dinner with Peter, but something comes up at Peter's work. Ainsley has decided that she and Len have to have sex that very night and doesn't want Marian around in case they end up in her bedroom by accident. Marian worries about walking in on them, so Ainsley suggests hanging Len's tie from the doorknob. Marian goes to the cinema and runs into Duncan again, although they barely talk.

When she comes home from the cinema, the landlady - who lives downstairs - is concerned that Ainsley has a man with her, but Marian insists that she must be mistaken.

She finds Len's tie hanging from the doorknob of her bedroom.

Answer: Clara

Lucy, Millie and Emmy are Marian's colleagues, while Clara is an old school friend of Marian's, who is heavily pregnant and gives birth to her third child during the course of the novel. She is married to Joe and Ainsley is disgusted about how much Joe has to do for her. Millie is Australian and works as Mrs Bogue's assistant, Emmy is a typist and a hypochondriac, and Lucy works in PR. Marian usually has lunch with them.

They are all virgins for different reasons, and dislike Ainsley (who came up with the nickname of 'office virgins'). Marian later walks in on Lucy flirting with Peter at their engagement party.

Answer: Duncan's housemates

Trevor and Fish are a pair of graduate students who live with Duncan and are like parental figures to him. Duncan refuses to let Marian sit in either of their chairs as they do their work there, and he doesn't want her messing up the papers. Trevor's family own a coconut cookie factory in Montreal, and Fish - whose real name is Fischer - comes from Vancouver and is considering writing a paper on 'Alice in Wonderland' interpreting it as a metaphor for Alice's journey into womanhood. Trevor also loves to cook.

They invite Marian over for dinner so they can meet her, but she is unable to eat Trevor's kebab as she can no longer eat meat, and accidentally hits Duncan in the head with it while trying to surreptitiously throw bits of meat to him.

Answer: It makes her think of thousands of tiny lungs bursting.

Marian and Peter go to a restaurant and while they eat steak, she begins to imagine the death of the cow that became the steak and is unable to eat. This extends to other types of meat, and then to eggs when she finds out Len has a fear of eggs stemming from childhood, and she visualises an egg as a living creature.

She is also unable to eat rice pudding as she images the rice as tiny cocoons, and when she eats a piece of cake, she imagines tiny lungs bursting and spits it out. She even rejects carrots as she imagines a carrot as a living thing. One theory suggested for this is that Marian is refusing to eat as a form of silent protest against being coerced into a more feminine role, or that she sees herself as prey and is empathising with the dead animals that people eat.

Answer: He pours beer over her head.

Marian comes home from the hairdresser to hear Len and Ainsley having a heated argument. Len accuses Ainsley of using him and ends up running off, screaming abuse at the landlady and her guests. The landlady subsequently orders Ainsley to leave, blaming her for Len's behaviour, and Ainsley reveals to the landlady's horror that she is pregnant. Joe and Clara bring Len to the engagement party and Ainsley makes the announcement. Len responds by 'christening' the baby, by pouring beer over Ainsley's head. Fish lends Ainsley his sweater, and the two later elope. Marian panics when Peter tries to take photos of her and sneaks out to meet Duncan, and ends up having sex with him in a cheap motel.

She begs him to talk to Peter, but he refuses.

Answer: A woman made of cake

Marian gets an angry phone call from Peter, asking where she was and why she ran away from the party. Marian invites him over to tea, and then goes shopping to buy cake ingredients and kitchen equipment. She makes a lemon cake in the shape of a woman, with chocolate icing for hair and a pink dress.

When Peter comes over, she tells him that he has been trying to assimilate and destroy her, and that she has made him a substitute. Peter leaves in horror and Marian realises she is hungry, and Ainsley and Fish walk in on her eating the cake woman. Ainsley accuses her of rejecting her femininity, but Marian replies that it's just a cake.

The engagement is broken off and Marian plans to start looking for another job, and tidies the house up after Ainsley has moved out. Duncan comes over to visit, complaining that Fish has abandoned him, and the book ends with him finishing off the cake as Marian watches.