Lionel Shriver – författare

‘A superb satirical novelist’ WASHINGTON POST In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant – who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be. ‘An incendiary provocateur’ EVENING STANDARD ‘A gleeful satire on the immigration debate’ THE TIMES Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme – Big Apple, Big Heart – that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom.As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart. But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the ‘migrant crisis’ in general – though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.

'Seldom is a book as funny, important and timely … I was laughing out loud at the same time as my blood was running cold' JOHN CLEESE ‘Viciously funny… an exhilarating satire’ THE TIMES 'Merciless… a welcome distraction' ECONOMIST, Best Books of 2024 What if calling someone stupid was illegal? In a reality not too distant from our own, the worst thing you can call someone is 'stupid'.Everyone is equally clever, and discrimination based on intelligence is 'the last great civil rights fight'. Exams and grades are discarded and you don't need a qualification to be a doctor.When best friends Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposing sides of this new culture war, their relationship begins to fracture. And soon, Pearson’s determination to cling onto the 'old, bigoted way of thinking' begins to endanger her job, her safety and even her family… Hilarious, deadpan and scathing, MANIA is a frighteningly plausible glimpse into what the world could become – or is already – from the pen of a master storyteller.

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2010ONE MILLION COPIES SOLDEva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about motherhood. How much is her fault? In Lionel Shriver's hands this sensational, chilling and memorable story of a woman who raised a monster becomes a metaphor for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.

The first essay collection from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time. ‘This trenchant, unrepentant collection reminds you that she’s a brilliant writer… Order a copy in case she’s cancelled by Christmas’ THE TIMES (Book of the Year) ‘You may disagree with Lionel Shriver’s bracing journalism, but her right to spark disquiet goes to the heart of the freedom of expression issue’ Rachel Cooke, OBSERVER ‘Mutinous essays about modern politics and culture… An independent mind and a sense of humour are dangerous things to possess. The spiky, politically incorrect novelist Lionel Shriver has them in abundance’ THE TIMES ‘Testament to the fierce intelligence of a writer who wants us to think more, probe more, challenge more — and who also makes it fun’ THE SUNDAY TIMES Novelist, cultural observer and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces ‘under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous’ points of view, she regularly deplores the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken society.Bringing together thirty-five works curated from her many columns, features, essays and op-eds for the likes of the Spectator and Guardian, speeches and reviews, and some unpublished pieces, Abominations reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly sceptical, cutting and contrarian but also frequently moving and vulnerable, this collection showcases her piquant opinions on a wide range of topics, including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care and taxes.Though some of the more divisive essays in Abominations have ‘brought hell and damnation down on my head,’ as she cheerfully explains, she also offers insights on her novels and explores the perks and pitfalls of becoming a successful artist. Readers will find plenty to challenge them here, but they may also find many nuanced and considered insights with which they agree.Abominations was a Times Book of the Year in the Literature category on 26.11.2022

Eva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who tried to befriend him. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband, Franklyn. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

A NEW EDITION WITH EXTRA MATERIAL FROM THE AUTHOR 'So moving it will make you want to gasp or cry’ Sunday Times ‘Glorious, fearless… possibly her very best’ Observer 'Pandora is a masterly creation' New York Times Pandora has looked up to her older brother Edison since they were children. Now she revels in the anonymity of her suburban Iowa life, while her brother basks in the limelight as a New York jazz musician. But when Edison arrives in Iowa, suddenly in need of a place to stay, Pandora literally doesn't recognize him. The once slim, hip pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened?With Shriver's distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother asks: just how much should you sacrifice for someone who refuses to be saved?–––––––––––––––‘A surprising sledgehammer of a novel’ The Times‘Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger… glorious, fearless, almost fanatically hard-working prose’ Guardian‘Lionel Shriver's Big Brother has the muscle to overpower its readers. It is a conversation piece of impressive heft’ New York Times‘Shriver is wonderful at the things she is always wonderful at. Pace and plot… . Psychology’ Independent‘The latest compelling, humane and bleakly comic novel from the author of We Need to Talk about Kevin’ Evening Standard‘Her best work… presents characters so fully formed that they inhabit her ideas rather than trumpet them’ New Republic

WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2005ONE MILLION COPIES SOLDEva never really wanted to be a mother; certainly not the mother of a boy named Kevin who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker and a teacher who had tried to befriend him. Now, two years after her son's horrific rampage, Eva comes to terms with her role as Kevin's mother in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her absent husband Franklyn about their son's upbringing. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about motherhood. How much is her fault? In Lionel Shriver's hands this sensational, chilling and memorable story of a woman who raised a monster becomes a metaphor for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.

From the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin ‘Enjoyably abrasive… a compelling read… sardonic and elegant’ Evening Standard‘Scabrously funny… few authors can be as entertainingly problematic as Shriver’ Guardian‘With laugh-out-loud and sad moments, it’s a pinpoint-sharp novel’ Woman and Home‘A satire on fitness zealotry with a side serving of culture-war intrigue… diverting’ Financial Times‘Darkly funny… Shriver is so good at making wry observations about human behaviour and this is particularly witty on the dynamics between couples who have been together a long time’ Good Housekeeping‘Shriver is an exuberant novelist, fertile in ideas, robust in argument and disdainful of economy… She writes bold and fearless comedy and delights in slaughtering the sacred cows of the stupid times we live in. Few novelists now raise a laugh. Shriver does so time and again’ Allan Massie, The Scotsman‘Mischievous Lionel Shriver takes aim at the narcissistic modern cult of exercise. When Serenata’s usually sedentary husband, Remington, takes up exercise and engages an attractive personal trainer called Bambi, the couple’s lives are turned upside down.’ The Times Best Books for Summer 2020All her life Serenata has run, swum, and cycled – but now that she’s hit 60, all that physical activity has destroyed her knees. And her previously sedentary husband Remington chooses this precise moment to discover exercise.As he joins the cult of fitness, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. When he announces his intention to compete in a legendarily gruelling triathlon, Serenata is sure he's going to end up injured or dead – but the stubbornness of an ageing man in Lycra is not to be underestimated.The story of an obsession, of a marriage, of a betrayal: The Motion Of The Body Through Space is Lionel Shriver at her hilarious, sharp-eyed, audacious best.

‘A gutsy, heartfelt novel’ Sunday Times‘[Shriver’s] best novel yet’ Independent on Sunday‘A surprising sledgehammer of a novel’ The Times‘Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger… glorious, fearless, almost fanatically hard-working prose’ Guardian‘Lionel Shriver's Big Brother has the muscle to overpower its readers. It is a conversation piece of impressive heft’ New York Times‘Shriver is wonderful at the things she is always wonderful at. Pace and plot. . . . Psychology’ Independent‘The latest compelling, humane and bleakly comic novel from the author of We Need to Talk about Kevin’ Evening Standard‘Her best work… presents characters so fully formed that they inhabit her ideas rather than trumpet them’ New RepublicWhen Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at her local Iowa airport, she literally doesn’t recognize him. The once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened?Soon Edison’s slovenly habits, appalling diet, and know-it-all monologues are driving Pandora and her fitness-freak husband Fletcher insane. After the brother-in-law has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: it’s him or me.Rich with Shriver’s distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat: why we overeat and whether extreme diets ever really work. It asks just how much sacrifice we’ll make to save single members of our families, and whether it’s ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.

A scalpel sharp political satire from the Orange Prize winning writer of We Need to Talk about Kevin.‘A superbly witty political satire’ THE TIMESEdgar Kellogg has always yearned to be popular. Leaving his lucrative career as a lawyer for the sexier world of journalism, he’s thrilled to be offered the post of foreign correspondent in a Portuguese backwater with a home-grown terrorist movement. Barrington Saddler, the disappeared larger-than-life reporter he’s been sent to replace, is exactly the outsize character Edgar longs to emulate.‘The Daring Soldiers of Barba’ have been blowing up the rest of the world for years in order to win independence for Barba, a province so dismal, backward and windblown that you couldn’t give the rat hole away. So why, with Barrington vanished, do the terrorist incidents suddenly dry up?

THE BRILLIANT NEW NOVEL FROM THE ORANGE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN. ‘Distinctly chilling’ Independent  ‘Unsettling as it is entertaining’ Financial Times ‘It's scaring the hell out of me’ Tracy Chevalier In this eerily prophetic novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, a once-wealthy family faces the prospect of ruin. This apocalypse is financial – the dollar is in meltdown, America’s national debt far beyond repayment.It is 2029.The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies, but now their inheritance is turned to ash. Each family member must contend with disappointment, but also — as the effects of the downturn start to hit — the challenge of sheer survival.Recently affluent Avery is petulant that she can’t buy olive oil, while her sister Florence is forced to absorb strays into her increasingly cramped household. As their father Carter fumes at having to care for his demented stepmother now that a nursing home is too expensive, his sister Nollie, an expat author, returns from abroad at 73 to a country that’s unrecognizable.Perhaps only Florence’s oddball teenage son Willing, an economics autodidact, can save this formerly august American family from the streets…

The first novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk about Kevin is a compelling and provocative story of love and how we suffer for it.Still unattached and childless at fifty-nine, world-renowned anthropologist Gray Kaiser is seemingly invincible—and untouchable. Returning to make a documentary at the site of her first great triumph in Kenya, she is accompanied by her faithful middle-aged assistant, Errol McEchern, who has loved her for years in silence.When young graduate assistant Raphael Sarasola arrives on the scene, Gray is captivated and falls hopelessly in love—before an amazed Errol's eyes. As he follows their affair with jealous fascination, Errol watches helplessly from the sidelines as a proud and fierce woman is reduced to miserable dependence through miserable dependence.

From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin this is a novel about what it takes to make it in music. How charisma is worth its weight in gold. And how jealously can grow until it has eaten away at a musician’s heart.He has that thing that they’d all pay for but can’t buy: on stage and off, the 19-year-old rock drummer Checker Secretti is electric. When he plays with his band The Derailleurs, the natives of Astoria, Queens clamour for a piece of him. But charisma comes at a price. A Salieri to Checker’s Mozart, the fiercely envious fellow drummer Eaton Striker is eager to sow discord among the Derailleurs, that he might replace the exasperatingly popular goody-goody in the close-knit neighbourhood’s affections.An examination of the passion, the jealousy and the friendship of young musicians trying to break out, Checker and The Derailleurs is also about cycling, rock lyrics, glass blowing, the marriage of convenience, and—most of all—the mystery of joy.

From the Orange Prize-winning author of WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN comes a grimly comic tale of bad ideas and good intentions. With a deft, droll touch, Shriver highlights the hypocrisy of lofty intellectuals who would "save" humanity but who don't like people.Eleanor Merritt, a do-gooding American family-planning worker, was drawn to Kenya to improve the lot of the poor. Unnervingly, she finds herself falling in love with the beguiling Calvin Piper despite, or perhaps because of, his misanthropic theories about population control and the future of the human race. Surely, Calvin whispers seductively in Eleanor's ear, if the poor are a responsibility they are also an imposition.Set against the vivid backdrop of modern-day Africa, Game Control is a wry, sardonic conspiracy story about bad ideas and good intentions.

Following the success of We Need to Talk About Kevin this is a stunning examination of inheritance, literal and psychological: what we take from our parents, what we discard, and what we are stuck with, like it or not.After having escaped for years to London, Corlis McCrea returns to the grand Reconstruction mansion where she grew up in North Carolina, now willed to the three grown children following the death of their parents. All three want the house.Fiscal necessity dictates that two must buy a third out. Just as she was torn as a girl, the sister must choose between her decent younger brother and the renegade eldest—the black sheep who covets his legacy in order to destroy it. The adult siblings re-enact the deep enmities and loyalties of childhood, as each bids for a bigger slice of the pie.

From the Orange Prize winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, this is the novel Lionel Shriver wrote directly afterwards. The Post-Birthday World is an unflinching account of the choices that unfold before us and what our decisions really mean.Irina McGovern’s destiny hinges on a single kiss. Whether she gives into its temptation will determine whether she stays with her reliable partner Lawrence, or runs off with Ramsey, a hard-living snooker player.Employing a parallel universe structure, Shriver spins Irina’s competing futures with two drastically different men. An intellectual and fellow American, Lawrence is clever and supportive, but rigid and emotionally withdrawn. A British celebrity, Ramsey is passionate and spontaneous, but jealous, undereducated, and prone to pick arguments. Their contrasting characters will colour her other relationships, her career, and the texture of her daily life.If love is always about trade-offs—if every romantic prospect is flawed—how can we ever know whom to choose?

From the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin comes the most entertaining novel about illness and death one’s ever likely to read and asks the uncomfortable fiscal question: how much is one life worth?Shepherd Knacker has been saving all his working life for a one way ticket away from the daily grind. When he sells his handyman business for $1million, ‘The Afterlife’ seems tantalisingly within reach. Yet his wife has concocted one reason after another why now isn’t the time to go. Determined to take the plunge, Shep announces that he is leaving for an island off the coast of Tanzania: with or without her. However, Glynis has an announcement of her own – she needs his health insurance.

From the Orange Prize-winning author of WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN comes a bold and savage story of the intersection of politics and human relationships, set in turbulent Northern Ireland.Having abandoned Philadelphia for the life of an international nomad, Estrin Lancaster has a taste for hot spots. She now finds herself in Belfast, a city scarred by twenty years of ritualised violence.As the former purveyor of his own bomb-disposal service, Farrell O’Phelan courts the company of destruction. Technically a Catholic, he shuns allegiance of any kind.For these two, normal life is anathema; love is a trap. What ensues is an affair between two loners who are beset with a fear of domesticity and a hunger for devastation.

‘When feminism has become the politics that dare not speak its name, it is refreshing to find an author who will bring such renewed vigour to the gender wars’ Guardian“Love me, love my game,” says professional tennis player Willy Novinsky at twenty-three. Tennis has been Willy’s one love, until she meets the uncannily confident Eric Oberdorf. Low-ranked but untested, Eric, too, aims to make his mark on the international tennis circuit.They marry. But their life together soon grows poisoned by full-tilt competition over which spouse can rise to the top first. Willy discovers that her perfect partner may also prove her most devastating opponent.An unflinching look at the ravages of rivalry in the two-career relationship, Double Fault is not so much about tennis as about marriage—a slightly different sport.

A best fiction book of 2021 for The Times‘Hilarious… Fiery phrases spit and crackle. Disgust expands and bursts into belly laughs… a very funny book’ Sunday Times‘Thought-provoking, timely, and extremely funny’ Metro‘Shriver said that her favourite novels are those that pack both an intellectual and emotional punch. With Should We Stay or Should We Go, she’s added triumphantly to their number’ The Times‘Witty and thought-provoking’ Woman’s Weekly‘I think Shriver’s novels are wonderful… fun, smart and, perhaps because of their author’s unconventional political views, unlike anything else you’ll read’ Financial Times‘Entertaining and poignant’ Daily Mail‘Very moving… Shriver has the magic ability to make the reader invested in the fate – fates, I should say – of her characters’Daily Telegraph‘Wickedly witty’ Spectator‘Decidedly timely’ Scotsman‘This sharp-elbowed satire is also a brusquely tender portrait of enduring love’ Washington Post––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-Determined to die with dignity, Kay and her husband Cyril – both healthy and vital medical professionals in their early fifties – make a pact: to commit suicide together once they’ve both turned eighty.A lot can change in thirty years, however…By turns hilarious and touching, playful and grave, Should We Stay or Should We Go portrays twelve parallel universes, each exploring a possible future for Kay and Cyril. Do they honour their agreement? And if not, will they live to regret it?‘Some books become so popular that the lucky author can thereafter churn out any old cobblers, confident in the knowledge that it will be published and find an audience. Lionel Shriver never took that easy route’ Irish Independent

'Seldom is a book as funny, important and timely … I was laughing out loud at the same time as my blood was running cold' JOHN CLEESE ‘Viciously funny… an exhilarating satire’ THE TIMES'Merciless… a welcome distraction' ECONOMIST, Best Books of 2024What if calling someone stupid was illegal?In a reality not too distant from our own, where the so-called Mental Parity Movement has taken hold, the worst thing you can call someone is 'stupid'.Everyone is equally clever, and discrimination based on intelligence is 'the last great civil rights fight'.Exams and grades are all discarded, and smart phones are rebranded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word and encouraged to report parents for using it. You don't need a qualification to be a doctor.Best friends since adolescence, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposing sides of this new culture war. Radio personality Emory – who has built her career riding the tide of popular thought – makes increasingly hard-line statements while, for her part, Pearson believes the whole thing is ludicrous.As their friendship fractures, Pearson's determination to cling onto the 'old, bigoted way of thinking' begins to endanger her job, her safety and even her family.Lionel Shriver turns her piercing gaze on the policing of opinion and intellect, and imagines a world in which intellectual meritocracy is heresy. Hilarious, deadpan, scathing and at times frighteningly plausible, MANIA will delight the many fans of her fiction and journalism alike.

‘A superb satirical novelist’ WASHINGTON POST In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant – who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be. ‘An incendiary provocateur’ EVENING STANDARD ‘A gleeful satire on the immigration debate’ THE TIMES Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city programme – Big Apple, Big Heart – that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is sceptical. A classic live-at-home, unemployed Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents the indignity of moving from his self-contained basement flat and back into his childhood bedroom.As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico’s sisters, while finding her way into Gloria’s heart. But as Martine’s disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico grows only more hostile to both his mother’s altruism and the ‘migrant crisis’ in general – though turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.