Mania - by Lionel Shriver (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"A fantasy that hews uncomfortably close to today's reality, where facts and the truth are selectively recognized at increasingly subjective whims . . . . The specifics of Mania are the stuff of bleeding satire, but the novel's guiding concept cuts close to the bone with no anesthesia. Shriver isn't one to tip-toe around her subjects. She still knows how to poke the bear. In this case, the bear is us." -- Boston Globe

Set in a parallel yet all too familiar near past, a brilliant subversive novel of social commentary about a lifelong friendship threatened by culture wars, from the New York Times bestselling author.

In an alternate history version of 2011, the Mental Parity movement takes hold. Americans now embrace the sacred, universal truth that there is no such thing as variable human intelligence. Because everyone is equally smart, discrimination against purportedly dumb people is "the last great civil rights fight." Tests, grades, and employment qualifications are all discarded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word ("stupid") and encouraged to report parents who use it at home.

A college English instructor, the constitutionally rebellious Pearson Converse--a fierce believer in intellectual freedom--rejected her restrictive Jehovah's Witness upbringing as a teenager, and so has an aversion to dogma of any kind. Made impotent in the university classroom, she's also enraged by the crushing of her exceptionally bright children's spirits in primary school. Fortunately, she enjoys the confidence of a best friend, a media commentator with whom she can speak frankly about her socially unacceptable contempt for the MP movement. Or at least she thinks she can . . . until one day the political chasm between the two women becomes uncrossable, and a lifelong relationship implodes.

With echoes of Philip Roth's The Human Stain, this compelling work of dystopian fiction is told in Lionel Shriver's inimitable and iconoclastic voice, Mania is a sharp, acerbic, and ruthlessly funny book about the road to a delusional, self-destructive egalitarianism that our society is already on.

Review Quotes

"The Cassandra of American letters. . . . It's probably already obvious that Shriver isn't the kind of writer who lets her themes rise gently to the surface. She seizes them with an almost animalistic ferocity and interrogates them for all they're worth. Her smart, satirical fiction is old-fashioned in that it serves as a vehicle for investigating political and social question, but it's also almost uncannily of its moment." - New York Times Book Review

"A modern Orwellian tale. . . . Lionel Shriver imagines cancel culture going to even greater extremes. . . . As a writer, Ms. Shriver is merciless and funny; as a thinker she is contrarian. . . . But the novel's themes--of society's quick pivots when it comes to socially acceptable beliefs, and how close friendships can be poisoned by the culture wars--feel like a welcome distraction, given their slightly (but not unbelievably) absurd elements." - The Economist

"Viciously funny . . . . An exhilarating satire." - The Times (UK)

"An uproarious tale of holier-than-thou posturing." - Mail on Sunday

"Never shy of getting stuck in, Shriver now sets her satirical sights on groupthink and the policing of thought." - Financial Times

"Provocative, stimulating, and outrageous." - The Spectator

"A savage dystopian satire." - The Scotsman

"A superb satirical novelist . . . . [Shriver's] latest novel, Mania, is one of her best . . . . very funny, occasionally offensive and, yes, smart." - Maureen Corrigan, Washington Post

"Clever." - Los Angeles Times

"Merciless and funny . . . . the novel's themes--of society's quick pivots when it comes to socially acceptable beliefs, and how close friendships can be poisoned by the culture wars--feel like a welcome distraction, given their slightly (but not unbelievably) absurd elements." - The Economist

"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

"Shriver . . . suffuses this cogent tale of a toxic friendship with contrarian political commentary. . . . Those sympathetic toward Shriver's anti-groupthink message will find much to enjoy." - Publishers Weekly

"The rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, Shriver makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country. . . . It's a bitter pill, indeed, but take it if you can." - Ron Charles, Washington Post, on So Much for That

"A searing, addictive novel about the power and limitations of food, family, success, and desire. Shriver examines America's weight obsession with both razor-sharp insight and compassion." - J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Maine and Commencement, on Big Brother

"[A] gifted novelist like Lionel Shriver makes me shut my mouth, swallow my cynicism and respectfully acknowledge the dramatic depth that fiction can bring to debate over current events. . . . Glinting. . . . A complex social satire that rips apart the machinery and the psychology of the American health care industry with much of the vigor, wit, and empathy that Dickens ladled on the law in Bleak House. Inventive. . . . What's really striking here is the way Shriver's juiced-up language and droll social commentary never flag once throughout this long and deliciously involved novel." - Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air

"The world that the Mandible family must negotiate is evoked in seamless detail... One thing I really like is her coining of made-up slang for her younger generation of characters and her resolutely materialist analysis of what could be coming." - Irvine Welsh, The Guardian

"Readers craving sharp social commentary need look no further than Shriver, who is at the top of her game with this scary-smart and scathing satire." - Booklist (starred review)