I love Lionel Shriver -- I love her compromised and vunerable characters, beset by inner demons, selfish desires, dark, dark motives that the best of them overcome. Few of her characters are good, virtuous, exemplary, -- They are very,very human, exhausted, unattractive, insecure,  hiding their inner turmoil. They are  literally given trial by fire, incrementally and inexorably tortured by unbearable situations that anybody in real life may find themselves in, terminal cancer, bankruptcy, endless care of a damaged child,profound fear of the future. Some of them thrive and some of them fail -- not through any special attributes or help from God- but by a strange mixture of chance, choice and determination and a healthy dollop of character acquired through suffering. Her people remind me of myself and constantly make me count my blessings that I have not been tested so severely . The book which brought her to my attention was, of course, the famous We need to talk about Kevin -- Kevin is a true monster, but his genetic propensity can be traced to the narrator of the book itself, his mother, whose destructive intelligence and lack of insight interfere with her ability to save her family -- and whose lack of empathy is reflected in the dead eyes of her damaged son. She is a jumble of good intentions, sly condescension,shallow and self serving cover my butt excuses -- and, she knows it, which is what makes most of the main characters in Shriver's books so appealing, they know what they are, they do try, but so often they just fail to control all that dreck inside.  Shriver has a new book coming out in June, Big Brother- dealing with morbid obesity which, unfortunately touches her and my family history .
 I am looking forward to it and am rereading another one of her books So Much for That -- a book which received both criticism and praise for  insight into the failure of the American medical insurance system. I really don't think it is about the medical insurance system at all -- at most peripherally -- it is about the strength of love and obligation in families- member to member- in the face of horrifying disease and potential bankruptcy. How each member of the two families fulfills these obligations, despite their dark despair, immature impulses and insane feelings   brought on by stress , is the crux of the plot. Two families are confronted  with death sentences, one wife faced with  incurable mesothelioma, another  child suffers minute by minute with a horrifying condition, familial dysautonomia, which shrinks and twists her body and soul-- a genetic disease for which her parents are ultimately and innocently responsible. Those of us who have been lucky enough to escape these circumstances,  cannot conceive of the pain and guilt and horrible anger these people may feel inside,  just brimming over yet not spilling out -- and yet we all probably sit back and think about how we would react-- Shriver lets her characters react -- and their reactions are scary and powerful , not virtuous, not touched by angels, just very, very human. Some of them rise to the situation, despite their frailties, others fall by the wayside, but everybody is emptied and refilled. Shriver reminds me very much of Patricia Highsmith-- she writes about our worst nightmares made real -- gives her characters choices, rationalizations, good and bad intentions and lets them tell their own stories. Her books are not for the faint of heart -- but not for the despairing either. There is hope - compromised, damaged, in shreds just like so much of human endeavour.