The work of Lionel Shriver came to my attention about a month ago through an interview with Ed Dutton. Unfortunately, most of the hour-long discussion is behind a paywall with only about 10 minutes available for free. I could tell right away that this was the kind of writer I’d enjoy reading and this has proven to be an accurate judgement.
Shriver discussed several of her works during the interview but was promoting her latest novel, Mania, published this year by HarperCollins. It is an alternative history in which the “last civil rights battle” is won. Differences in cognitive ability are no longer recognized as existing: all humans are equally smart. Words like dumb, stupid, dim, and a host of others are considered to be slurs comparable to the familiar race- and ethnic-related epithets of our current age. The story is told within the context of the disintegration of the narrator’s relationship with her best friend and the effects on her family. Shriver lampooned the, well, mania for equality so deftly that the book was put out by a major publisher and won positive reviews from some Regime media.
Of course, this was not her first book. Her breakthrough title was We Need to Talk About Kevin (2003), later made into a movie of the same title (2011). This is the story of a psychopathic son as told by his somewhat disturbed mother after the son commits a heinous crime. I also read The Mandibles (2016, about the economic collapse of the US circa 2030) and The Motion of the Body Through Space (2020, on a cult-like obsession with fitness and exercise). I’m now in the midst of Should We Stay or Should We Go (2021, about a couple who, at age 60, commit to a suicide pact for when they reach age 80).
What these seemingly disparate books have in common is Shriver’s superb character development. Even though the novels’ topics are quite varied, the people are interesting and evolve in unexpected yet believable ways. Her characters can be annoying, self-absorbed, or weird but they also have redeeming features that make the reader care about what happens to them. Thus, while her topics are rather dark, one does not come away from her books depressed or anxious.
The five stories I’ve mentioned are all told from the point of view of a middle-aged or older female narrator. Ordinarily, this might put me off or, at least, make me approach Shriver’s work skeptically. That’s probably because contemporary female authors can have a bit of a chip on their shoulders. Shriver’s narrators are womanly without letting their sex overwhelm all else. They are humans with woman characteristics, to borrow a phrase from the ChiComs.
Anyhow, I enthusiastically recommend her writing. The movie was pretty good, too.