BOOK REVIEW: We need to talk about death
In Lionel Shriver’s novel Should We Stay or Should We Go the topics of dying and ageing take centre stage
A 2016 review in the New York Times called Lionel Shriver the “Cassandra of American letters” and reminded readers that “the curse of Cassandra, after all, was that she told the truth”. Shriver is known for tackling contentious topics.
In the polarising We Need to Talk About Kevin, set in a time when school shootings were rampant in the US, a mother documents her attempt to come to terms with the murderous actions of her psychopathic son, Kevin. In So Much for That, she presents a scathing indictment of the US healthcare system. Big Brother delves into the thorny issue of obesity and the emotional connection between weight, eating, shame and control. In The Mandibles she imagines America’s economic and infrastructural collapse, the horror of it all captured by the moment in which people run out of, wait for it, toilet paper...
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