We need to talk about Lionel Shriver and mothers
I recently saw Lionel Shriver speak at literary Festival. Wow. She really is bitter and twisted. But she sure can write. The woman can convey about five different meanings in just a few words. Amazing really.
If you haven’t heard about Shriver, she rose to fame a few years ago when her novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, won the Orange Prize for Fiction. The book plays out every mother’s nightmare … what if you don’t bond with your child and he becomes a mass murderer? I suggested it for my mummy book club once … and I may as well asked them to have Adolf Hitler for dinner. No one wanted it talk about it. They couldn’t get past the fact that Shriver wasn’t a mother and was writing about something she has no experience of… (aah, but does she?)
So what does Shriver have against mothers? Nothing, she quickly pointed out to the audience when asked. But I can’t help but think this isn’t so. Shriver is scathing about her own mother. Just read her “freezer” passage in A Perfectly Good Family (chapter 8). It is one of the coldest pictures you could paint of motherhood. She admits that when published the novel caused a huge rift in her family that still remains. Yet she says writing about her parents was a form of love (the ultimate insult would be not to write about them). Writing is therapeutic and I guess like many of us she is just trying to make sense of her her past.
Her unpopularity in some circles is a bit reminiscent of Kate Chopin (The Awakening), an American 19th century writer that was ostracised for writing about taboo topics. In Chopin’s case it was talking bluntly about female sexuality. Shriver touches on some very uncomfortable topics (depression, dysfunctional families).
Shriver changed her name when she was a teenager from Margaret Anne to Lionel (in the 70s it was popular for girls to take boys names and she considered herself a tomboy). She says only now she is beginning to understand how this must have hurt her parents. I can’t help but think what else the childless Shriver doesn’t understand. Having children can be a great eye opener. Suddenly all those stupid things your parents did, well they are not so stupid anymore. At least you can now understand them. And even if you can’t, how about a little forgiveness?
Here’s the clincher. This bitterness obviously drives her writing. What happens when she gets it out of her system? Does she have nothing to write about or does she channel her talent into something more positive? Am I missing the point?
As for a sequel to We Need To Talk About Kevin. Probably not. She said she spent too much time with Kevin (writing and the aftermath) and has sated her appetite for the serial killer.
Have you read any Shriver books, what do you think?
Dulwich Divorcee | 27th Nov 09
I read Kevin recently – most of the time I was yearning to put it down, felt quite contaminated by it, but it’s certainly a powerful book. I think I agree with you that Shriver has a problem with mothers and motherhood (as well as other things, I should think). Still, a very powerful and disturbing book. I loved the Awakening, by the way – amazing book.
Iota | 13th Oct 09
I read ‘Kevin’ and I thought it was a brilliant, clever, dark book. My book club (of 3 mums) did discuss it, and it made for a good discussion. We definitely thought it would NOT be a book for a new mother, or a pregnant woman, or anyone in a difficult phase of life. It is very disturbing.
For me, the main character’s mother came out of it as a model of motherhood. Don’t know if you remember, as there’s very little about her, but at the end, when life is falling apart, she comes to stay, and in order to do, that has to overcome a lifelong phobia of flying.
I want to say more, but I feel I would spoil the plot. Perhaps that last para was already too much.
Solveig | 13th Oct 09
This is actually one of my favourite books – it’s traumatic reading but I could hardly put it down. I didn’t really see it as a book about motherhood though, just one woman/mother’s very extreme and awful experience.
Saffia Farr | 12th Oct 09
I’ve had this book on my shelf for years but every time I’ve picked it up to read I’ve been put off, worried it will upset me too much as a mother. Reading this I’m thinking maybe I should try again.
ps, Susanna, I’ve recently joined BMB and as I love books and reading have posted a discussion asking people about what they are reading. I’m now feeling a bit of a “norma no-mates” as no-one has replied! (There’s some relief in that at least there’s a good discussion and some interesting recommendations going on at my blog if anyone’s interested…)
mothership | 12th Oct 09
I read Kevin and also The Birthday Year and enjoyed both a great deal. I thought it was glaringly obvious that the author was not a mother, but that did not necessarily detract from how interesting and good I found the books. Kevin was less about the inability to bond with a child than a multi-layered book about a woman and her ambivalence towards parenthood, wife-dom, ageing, and ultimately herself. The narrator remains remarkably immature and selfish, not to mention unreliable. I found the same in the Birthday Year which has a dual narrative of how events might have turned out if the storyteller had stayed with one man rather than another. This is obviously written from the perspective of a middle-aged, childless woman (like the author) and it becomes clearer and clearer to me, at least, that Shriver is defined by her status as a very clever, dark woman who has huge perspicacity and powers of observation, but not necessarily a great deal of self awareness including emotional maturity. My 2 cents anyway.
Loved the books though if you don’t take them personally.
A Modern Mother | 12th Oct 09
Nappy — agreed, it’s all a bit twisted…
nappyvalleygirl | 12th Oct 09
I read We Need to Talk about Kevin and, up until fairly near the end, thought she was making some valid points about how not every mother is programmed to bond with her child (not my experiece, but I have plenty of sympathy for those that don’t find it easy). However, the denouement really made me feel sick. She IS a good writer but she leaves such a bad taste in the mouth that I’m not tempted to read more – a bit like those horror films that you always remember but don’t want to ever see again.
A Modern Mother | 12th Oct 09
Britin Bosnia — the one about the birthday is very interesting…. basically about two parallel outcomes — one with a reliable, although somewhat regular man, and another with the more exciting alternative…
Domestic — I’m with you on that
Laura — will do…
Laura McIntyre | 12th Oct 09
I read it a while back , what the heck was the twist again? Totally blanking out (email me lauracmcintyte@gmail.com if not to spoil).
I do remember enjoying it, it was a heavy long read but would pick up some of her other stuff.
Domestic Goddesque | 12th Oct 09
Lets just say I read it when I was pregnant last time and won’t be this time: it scared the bejeepers out of me (no, didn’t see the twist coming either) the first time and I can still remember the details clearly enough not to need a recap. The sign of a good book, no?
Brit in Bosnia | 12th Oct 09
I could not put We Need to Talk About Kevin down. It totally got me back into reading novels again (post babies and mid PhD). The twist is something else, and even though I knew there was an amazing twist, I still didn’t spot it.
I didn’t know she doesn’t have children. That explains quite a bit about her writing. Interested that Potty doesn’t rate her other books. I’ve not been tempted to read any of them.
A Modern Mother | 12th Oct 09
I didn’t see it coming either, and that twist is one of the best parts of the book…
Potty Mummy | 12th Oct 09
I’ve read ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and one other (can’t remember the title, it was about a tennis playing couple). The first blew my socks off, I really didn’t see the denoument coming and that’s rare for me – Husband has banned me from telling him who dunnit in whatever we’re watching on tv, for example. The second book, not so great. And interestingly it didn’t feature the parent-child relationship as a central theme, so maybe you’re right and that’s where her main talent lies.