The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047

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Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver, in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a religious family. Her father, Donald, [1] was a Presbyterian minister who became an academic and president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York; [2] her mother was a homemaker. [3] At age 15, she changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given and, as a tomboy, felt a conventionally male name was more appropriate. [4]

The power of the book is not in its brilliance or originality (because it can claim only a trace amount of both) -- its power lies in its subject and the passive-aggressive way in which it is delivered in the first person -- a cloying, nails-on-a-chalkboard supercilious tone surely meant to inflame. Its power is not in the reading, but rather what follows -- the heated, emotional, no-holds-barred tempest of feeling it can only serve to generate at its conclusion. It's an A-bomb type of deal -- right up there with abortion and capital punishment -- and it will make you question the very core of many of your beliefs. This novel should, I hope, blast through any of those preconceptions--some of which, at some times in my life, I've believed.

The novel was adapted into the 2011 film of the same name, starring Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. [10]

You believe parents always, at some point and for most things, need to be held accountable for their child's behaviour; Shriver's book So Much for That was published on March 2, 2010. [12] In the novel, Shriver presents a biting criticism of the U.S. health care system. It was named as a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. [13] Her work The New Republic was published in 2012. It was written in 1998, but failed to find a publisher at the time. [14] The reasons people engage in sex are fairly obvious, even if only vaguely understood. But, despite religious objection, sex today is in principle independent of procreation. The reasons people have children are generally trivial when not downright nonsensical - to have a ‘real’ family, to satisfy the ‘needs’ of the other, to be able to shape another human being, to expand the possibilities for love, and dozens of other sentimental shibboleths which Shriver does an excellent job of cataloguing. None of these reaches the level of meaningful thought. Nor do they recognise the essential crap-shoot character of bearing and rearing a child. I think the relationship between mother and son (a son trying desperately to get a reaction from a mother who not only was ambivalent about his birth, but doesn't like him as a child either) is overshadowed by the horrific detals of the larger story. The nuances of the relationship -- and the truths about how far a child will go to gain his parents' attention -- are lost in the carnage.Reasons 1 to 5 are enough to bring this book into one star category but because Shriver is such a good writer and observer of American Culture I am generously bringing it up to a two. Portes, Jonathan (September 1, 2021). "An obsession with migration figures is about more than just numbers". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved September 17, 2021. Groskop, Viv (April 20, 2013). "Lionel Shriver: time to talk about her big brother". The Observer. ISSN 0261-3077.

Thomas, Scarlett (June 8, 2012). " The New Republic by Lionel Shriver – review". The Guardian . Retrieved June 28, 2020. A novel that's elegant & overly articulate--yet VERY readable. So much dexterity is on display here ("Damn what an amazing writer!" is a perpetual thought while reading this), with a prose made by some wizard's alchemy, a talent-filled intuition, & a distinct view that's brutal & uncomfortably honest. Shriver outshines even Flaubert himself: THIS is the very core of feminism, of individualism (move over Madame Bovary... you cared more for the idea of love than anything else, anyway, & never really gave a hoot about child rearing). This is a snappy underrated movie about a baby who is frankly unloveable because he tends to slaughter everyone within a 25 foot radius of himself. He's very difficult to get close to. Because he keeps scuttering away into the sewers. Wood, James (July 22, 2013). "Books: The Counterlife". The New Yorker. Vol.89, no.21. pp.76–78 . Retrieved October 30, 2014.I think the writing was superb and despite it being a hard book to read (the incident with the maps was particularly brutal), it was worth it. I think this dealt with the issue of school killings much more effectively than Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes. The character of Kevin did come alive for me and he was believable. I didn't even think that counseling might be an option because Franklin 100% believed that his son was fine and probably would have opposed Eva if she had suggested it. Just like she never thinks about them divorcing, she also never considers giving her son help.

Rutherford, Adrian (March 22, 2011), "Author’s generous legacy to beloved Belfast libraries", Belfast Telegraph. A baby could never be as manipulative or cunning the way Kevin is portrayed....even if he needed an exorcist due to demonic posession (jk) Kalfus, Ken (June 20, 2016). "The bankruptcy of liberal America: 'The Mandibles,' by Lionel Shriver". The Washington Post . Retrieved September 24, 2016. A sidenote on the writing -- I dislike having to work so hard to read a book. I have trouble believing that an ordinary reader made it through this novel without a dictionary in hand. What's with the convoluted sentence structure and made-up words, and why did the author insist on using phrases such as "lambent joy," ""immediate rapacities," and "alien argot?" And this, from a woman who supposedly wrote travel guides aimed at the average college student? I think not. Eva, I worked out, was born in 1945. Part of the time therefore when she would have been considering having a child would have been in the late 1960s, when Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb was hugely influential. With the plethora of reasons for and against having a child that Eva muses on, it is hard to credit that she would have completely missed out on agonising about the problem of over-population. In fact her eventual reason for having her son seems to have been an impromptu masochistic one, which I found barely credible. Similarly, when she chose to have a second child, I cannot believe she would have ignored the warning bells about Kevin, especially when she would not even have a pet dog for fear of what he might do to it.

Merritt, Stephanie (May 8, 2016). " The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 by Lionel Shriver – review". The Guardian . Retrieved June 28, 2020. If Real Mother could see herself now, would she wish her elderly self were dead? Even Fraudulent Mother often asserts that she’s ready to die. This may be the most content-rich statement I’ve heard from her since 2015: “I don’t want to die, but I need to die.” In most meaningful senses, my mother is no longer here, but I’ve been cheated even of my own bereavement. It's rare that I dream about books. It doesn't matter if I read it up until the minute I drop off; I only dream about a book I'm reading, or have read if it pulled me into its world first. I dream about the books that touch my soul. *cue dramatic music* Cochrane, Kira (October 11, 2011). "Tilda Swinton: 'I didn't speak for five years' ". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077 . Retrieved June 28, 2020. BBC News– Cannes gets talking about British Kevin drama". BBC. May 12, 2011 . Retrieved December 23, 2011.