The Motion of the Body Through Space

by Lionel Shriver

In Lionel Shriver’s entertaining send-up of today’s cult of exercise—which not only encourages better health, but now like all religions also seems to promise meaning, social superiority, and eternal life—an aging husband’s sudden obsession with extreme sport makes him unbearable.

After an ignominious early retirement, Remington announces to his wife Serenata that he’s decided to run a marathon. This from a sedentary man in his sixties who’s never done a lick of exercise in his life. His wife can’t help but observe that his ambition is “hopelessly trite.” A loner, Serenata disdains mass group activities of any sort. Besides, his timing is cruel. Serenata has long been the couple’s exercise freak, but by age sixty, her private fitness regimes have destroyed her knees, and she’ll soon face debilitating surgery. Yes, becoming more active would be good for Remington’s heart, but then why not just go for a walk? Without several thousand of your closest friends?

As Remington joins the cult of fitness that increasingly consumes the Western world, her once-modest husband burgeons into an unbearable narcissist. Ignoring all his other obligations, he engages a saucy, sexy personal trainer named Bambi, who treats Serenata with contempt. When Remington sets his sights on the legendarily grueling triathlon, MettleMan, Serenata is sure he’ll end up injured or dead. And even if he does survive, their marriage may not.

The Motion of the Body Through Space is vintage Lionel Shriver written with psychological insight, a rich cast of characters, lots of verve and petulance, an astute reading of contemporary culture, and an emotionally resonant ending.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Audiobook, Book Club, Marriage, Literature

345 pages, ebook

First published May 7, 2020

About the author

Lionel Shriver's novels include the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, which won the 2005 Orange Prize and has now sold over a million copies worldwide. Earlier books include Double Fault, A Perfectly Good Family, and Checker and the Derailleurs. Her novels have been translated into twenty-five languages. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.

Author photo copyright Jerry Bauer, courtesy of Harper Collins.

Reviews

[Paromjit · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sorry to say that this was not a book for me, Lionel Shriver's skewering of our contemporary society's obsession with the fitness craze, failed to capture my interest throughout, and just goes to show how the same book can elicit such widely different reactions. This is not a review I wanted to write, many of my goodreads friends love it and I even had it recommended to me. I will keep this brief, the characters held little appeal for me, feeling too much like cliches and the story just did not engage me. However, I will say to readers that they should read other far more positive reviews before making the decision to read this.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audiobook/ebook sync...
Audio narration read by Laurence Bouvard

NOT A BOOK FOR EVERYONE.....
But....I LOVED IT!.....ha, in the same way I loved how I felt after running my very first marathon —in Oakland, Ca. years ago — in pouring rain from start to finish. Paul greeted me at the finish line with dry clothes and a congratulatory hug & kiss. Off to a yummy cafe... for ‘food’!

.......*prerequisites* are required! Ha...
Readers MUST check off at least 5 of these things before being ALLOWED to read “The Motion of Body Through Space”.
Here’s the prerequisite list: ( all in fun)....

....Readers must be married at least 10 years
....You’ve paid $200 for a pair of running shoes
....when you hear the word, ‘Ironman’, you don’t even cringe.
....You’ve had sport injuries & sports related surgeries
....You’re 60 years old - or older - and can still bend down with a flat back and touch your toes.
....You’ve had a competitive streak with your spouse over fitness disciplines.
....You own spandex fitness clothes
....You love exercise, and tracking your progress.
....You’re obsessed with fitness, competition, toned bodies, food calories, training schedules,
fashionable running clothes, detox regimens, and morning ‘burn’ endurance or sprint workouts.
....You love reading books with unlikable characters.
.... social injustice pisses you off.
....You roll your eyes but ‘wonder’ about the truth of ranting dialogue conversations.
....You adore your father-in-law; he adores you back.
....You feel resentful about something in life!!!!

This book is a SATIRE....
about a married couple, in their 60’s.
Serenata and her husband, Remington, have a few problems to sort out.

....Running never solves any deep problems, but one might try!
....Running may ‘cause’ a few problems.....( as you will see for yourself in Lionel Shriver’s psychological/fitness craze novel)....
But....
....Readers might enjoy the absurdity, rejoice in the burn, and be entertained....
....Readers might enjoy the writing and compelling-craze of fitness-nuttiness.
Or...
You maybe not....

Lionel Shriver ( FEMALE author)..... has written other thought-provoking novels...
most known for “We Need to Talk About Kevin”....( excellent).
I’m a fan of “So Much For That”....(my personal favorite).
I liked this book too...( brought back memories).... to laugh about today.
I was able to relate with it from my past history as a once dedicated runner for over 25 years.

Personally ....I could probably always be up to read ‘something’ by Lionel. I like her.

[Ceecee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve got to be honest I wasn’t sure at first that I was going to like this book as Remington and Serenata (nee Terpsichore) Alabaster’s conversations at breakfast are not the ‘please pass the marmalade, dear’ variety. Oh, no. Much more erudite, intellectual and maybe a bit competitive! However, intrigue set in and I found myself totally immersed and invested in their story. The couple are Baby Boomers and clinging to lost youth as best they can. They are not alone! Serenata has been a runner for many years but regrettably has to give it up when her knees gave out. She continues to exercise as best she can with a punishing routine that includes burpees and sit ups and so on. Serenata is a bit of a trail blazer though there’s no artifice to this, she just likes to do what no one else is as she refuses to follow a crowd. When Remington, an early retiree and a non runner, decides that he wants to do a marathon he becomes a slavish convert to the detriment of his marriage and his body. When he meets Bambi Buffer, a trainer, he ups the ante and decided to take on a MettleMan (Iron Man in the UK) Triathlon which he clings to as if it is his ‘get out of jail free’, anti aging life raft.

This brilliantly incisive look at the almost evangelical exercise to excess and personal denial ‘religion’ and it’s detriment effects on body, soul and relationships is very acutely observed. The characters are really good and I especially like the portrayal of Remington and Serenata and their marriage which almost implodes under the pressure of Serenata’s resistance and Remington’s obsessiveness. Yes, she’s jealous and disdainful of his new found love of mass exercise and her loathing of Bambi is palpable. She’s very easy to loathe. ‘The Cult of Bambi’ followers are slavish and do not see that she is vile, opinionated, blinkered, unfeeling and downright wrong in what she preaches. I’m very pleased to say that eventually, cue Cyndi Lauper, that we ‘see your true colours shining through’ .... and Bambi is shown as a fraud. My greatest admiration is for Serenata who ploughs her own furrow and is an individual. Remington’ father Griffin is a lovely character too and to my surprise given the low bar build up from his parents I rather likes their wrong side of the tracks son Deacon but their self righteous daughter Valeria frankly needs a slap!!!

I really like the way the obsession with pushing yourself beyond reasonable limits is portrayed and it makes you think. The author makes thought provoking comments about the ‘Redemption’ Generation who forswear everything that is well, nice and makes life joyous. Serenata questions if it is all worth it and whether we should just embrace age and so on and just be happy. Make your own mind up! I think I’ll stick to Zumba followed by cake. One cancels out the other, right?

Overall, this book makes you think. It’s very well written, it’s a clever portrayal of aging and coming to terms with it. Note to self, avoid a knee replacement at all costs. Poor Serenata!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins, Harper Fiction for this outstanding arc.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck it, I'll give her 5*.

Shriver is consistently one of, if not my favourite author. There were sentences in this that she seemed to have downloaded from my own brain. Including one of my favourite rules that I thought I alone had come up with: The surest way to win someone else's game is not to play it at all.

I just love it.

It's about the American fitness craze, but really anything to which we devote ourselves--religion, drugs, whatever, isn't it all the same? Rich with personal meaning but arbitrary to everyone else? Potentially harmful, objectively pointless? I mean, we're all gonna die anyway, and even the most famous among us will pass out of history eventually, when the sun explodes and erases all history. And when it comes to exercise exceptionalism--does it really make a difference if you run 26 miles all at once or over two weeks? It's been done anyway. Then there's the super ultra extreme marathons and endurance tests, and those have also all been done anyway. Okay so you want to prove to yourself that you can run a marathon? Go on then, but calm the fuck down and don't act so smug as if it really means anything.

I fucking love that someone dedicated two years of their life to deliver this Leo-esque message. There's also frustration at wokeness, which I also share (maybe don't publish me BECAUSE I'm gay?!), but that doesn't land quite as effectively. It's like an ill-timed bit from a "conservative comedian."

I can't imagine that the core message of this book is terribly popular. I imagine that most people, even readers--a small subset of whom look to be challenged with uncomfortable but essentially indisputable ideas, but a greater number of whom made "The Alchemist" a bestseller--wouldn't want to hear what this book has to say. But, as Shriver puts it, it's funny how even groups you don't want to be a part of can make you feel excluded. And when huge swathes of people unquestionably centre themselves around various activities that make no sense to you, you can become convinced that there's something wrong with you. So this book is the kind of thing that keeps people like me sane.

But what am I supposed to do in the intervening two years it takes Shriver to write her next book?!

[Ron Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sitting on the couch reading a slaying satire about exercise fanatics should be as satisfying as a chocolate chip cookie, but Lionel Shriver’s new novel is exhausting. I’ve never felt so worn out by the labor of wincing.

“The Motion of the Body Through Space” tells the story of Serenata and Remington, a long-married couple in their early 60s living in Hudson, N.Y. A grim coincidence of professional and physical setbacks has recently halted the pleasant progress of their lives. Osteoarthritis in both knees has forced Serenata to stop running, a habit she had practiced for decades. And Remington has been forced out of his job at the Albany Department of Transportation, a dismissal that has unmanned him.

At a moment when they should be stewing together in stationary solidarity, Remington suddenly announces, “I’ve decided to run a marathon.” That declaration opens the novel and launches Serenata and Remington toward a crisis that will test their marriage and even threaten their lives. Having never seen her husband “run from here to the living room,” Serenata is dumbfounded by his new obsession. But her skepticism quickly curdles into bitterness. She takes it as a personal affront that Remington has decided to start running only now that she must stop. She imagines that running is her thing, a proprietary discipline begun and perfected by her long before the rest of America turned it into a fad.

Indeed, the fitness industry is a fat target for satire. And Shriver brings all her ferocious wit to bear to mock its hucksters and disciples. Readers who have endured condescending pity from well-toned gods and goddesses will initially relish Shriver’s merciless. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Anni · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But you seem to imply that concentrating on going from one place to another is empty in some way. If that’s the case, then life is empty. Life comes down to nothing more than the motion of the body through space.”

Lionel Shriver captures the zeitgeist in her usual immaculate prose style, with her unerringly acute social commentary:-
“Have you noticed, in these arts programs,” Remington noted in midsummer as they were tidying the lunch dishes with NPR in the background, “how often you hear, ‘You wouldn’t be able to say that now’? And they’re usually talking about a film or a stand-up routine that’s only three or four years old. You wouldn’t be able to say that now. Soon you won’t even be able to say what it is that you’re not allowed to say. We’ll become convinced that to express anything at all is extremely risky, and the species will go mute."

The targets for her scathing indictment are ripe for satire – but only a brave novelist like Shriver would dare to tackle them in this age of ‘wokeness’ and ultra sensitivity to offence – intended or not.
She zones in on all the various sacred cows of contemporary culture – such as PC groupthink, ‘cultural misappropriation’, identity politics, self-righteous virtue signalling, victimhood culture – and the main target of this novel – the obsession with the cult of exercise.

Along with the satire, Shriver's talent for observational comedy is displayed in the exchange of teasing repartee between the husband and wife - the sort of sniping and bickering that a couple can only get away with in a secure relationship, but which can be disastrous if the underlying fondness isn't there – and which is soon put to the test, as obsession turns into full-blown OCD.
... Wonderfully entertaining!

Many thanks to the publisher for the ARC via Netgalley

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

** As promised, here's my full review to update the place-holder **

This whole triathlon debacle had mangled their marriage at the very point in their lives when they most needed to rely on each other

For me, this is the best thing Shriver has written since Big Brother. It may not have the urgency of Kevin, say, but it's a scathing indictment of our cultural obsession with, even fetishisation of, diet, health and extreme fitness ('fitness fundamentalism' - haha!) - epitomised here by 65 year old Remington deciding to do first a marathon and then a triathlon. At the same time, it's also a portrait of a strong marriage in crisis, and Shriver weaves the two strands together with seamless mastery.

Serenata is one of Shriver's complex women who is wonderfully sharp and individual but also increasingly vulnerable both physically and emotionally. What Shriver manages so well is to keep this engaging as a novel, and avoid the trap of simply writing polemic or diatribe.

Alight with a dark humour, dropping in social commentary on everything from PC-ness to aging to religion (and sport becomes a religion in the book), this is hugely enjoyable: sly, intelligent, belligerent in places and bold.

Many thanks to HarperCollins/Borough Press for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Joanne Eckermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’ve loved some of Lionel Shriver’s books. I’ve seen her speak live a number of times. But this was a 200 page self- indulgent rant. More an op-ed piece in a Sunday paper than a novel. The thinly veiled ‘author as character voicing’ made the suspension of disbelief really tough. Ironically it lacked forward propulsion, given the title. We get it, you’re against the idea of cultural appropriation in fiction, exercise shouldn’t be a cult, and getting old sucks. End novel. Finished it, hated it.

[Milly Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uffffffffffffffffffff lo amé

el otro día invité a mi hija a desayunar, ella tiene 30, yo, como Serenata, 60
le pregunté si compartíamos unos molletes
me respondió, qué rico que te des molletes, ma
me entristeció el comentario, aunque quizá, yo tampoco me daba molletes a los 30

Este libro es maravilloso. Trata sobre el culto al físico y la ironía de envejecer.
Los personajes son increíblemente humanos, llenos de fallas y a la vez, de amor.
Los diálogos, aunque no creo que nadie hable nunca así (y lo curioso que ella lo menciona en su epílogo, es como si nos hiciera un guiño hacia algo) son elegantes, sádicos, incisivos, groseros.
Las reflexiones muy inteligentes.

Yo no había leído a esta autora desde el único libro en el que la leí y me dejó estremecida; ahora me dejó muy sorprendida, por la elocuencia, por el tema que me toca, que me llega, por esa cirugía de rodillas que también me debo hacer y que luego de leerla, le temo aun más; por esos no triatlones, pero si sprints que alguna vez hice; porque yo también envejezco y amo que mi marido también lo haga

Los libros son esto. La posibilidad de mirarte en un espejo, De entrar en otras vidas y sacar tus conclusiones. De ofenderte con la cultura y criticarla. De enamorarte de personajes y luego reírte, recordando que ni siquiera existen. De darle vuelta a las páginas y no querer terminar de leer. De levantarte y saber que ahí anda, ese libro, que te puede quitar la congoja de lo que está pasando en el mundo real, por un ratito.

Bueno, eso hacen los buenos libros. Los muy buenos. Como éste.

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

The protagonists of this novel are a couple in their 60s. Serenata has just turned 60, her husband, Remington, is 64, a transport engineer, who had to take early retirement. When he announces he wants to do a marathon, Serenata is incredulous, bemused and somewhat irritated by his zeal, which eventually comes to consume his life. What makes things worse for Serenata is that her knees are not co-operating anymore, she really needs knee replacements, but she dreads the pain and being incapacitated.

This was my first Shriver novel. It was quite an interesting read, engaging and thought-provoking.
The Motion of the Body Through Space is a social commentary on the newfound "religion", extreme fitness and to a certain extent the "wellness" world, where people spent a huge portion of their time and income drilling their bodies to the point they do more damage than good.
This novel is also about ageing, in all its many "glorious" ways, especially when it comes to the ways our bodies betray us, no matter how careful and fit we've been.

While I generally enjoyed this novel, on some occasions, Shriver's stance on things was way too obvious, especially when it comes to "political correctness gone mad".

Anyway, I'm not one of those readers who need to love the protagonists of a novel or have identical beliefs with an author in order for me to appreciate the writing. It's good to hear diverse, opposing views, now and then. Shriver is a talented writer, with a fine eye/pen for social commentary. I'm glad I've finally read her.

[Daisy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I never run. Ever. I won’t run for a bus and it’s a toss up as to whether I’d run to avoid being hit by one, so it is testament to Shriver’s skill as an author that I read 338 pages about marathon running.
I am sure there are many readers out there who dislike Lionel Shriver for being the contrarian she presents herself to be, but I admire and enjoy that she casts a critical eye on contemporary society and its mores and dares to say what a significant number only think.
This book is in some ways a companion piece (antithesis of?) to her earlier work Big Brother. Whereas that dealt with a woman who struggled to accept and not feel ashamed of her brother’s obesity this is about those who exercise to extremes.
We meet Serenata, a sixty year old who has spent her life swimming, cycling, crunching and jogging and revels in the attractiveness this effort rewards her with. At the opening of this book her regime has been curtailed as she waits to have a knee replacement operation and it is coincidental – possibly maliciously – that this is the precise moment her husband, Remington, chooses to take up marathon running. The book charts Remington’s training, his integration into a social group that replaces the workplace camaraderie that he lost along with his job and the stress this puts on his marriage as Serenata cannot bring herself to support him in this venture, instead choosing to be dismissive and prone to ridicule him.
Serenata is a complex character, she’s hypocritical (she laments that Remington is neglecting her while he trains but refuses to countenance her children’s claims that she neglected them by always exercising), she has something of a superiority complex, considering her solo runs and biking rather than using public transport elevate her above those who go out with a purpose or in groups and she’s spitefully funny. I laughed at the following passage despite being a lark rather than an owl,
The late nighter was synonymous with mischief, imagination, rebellion, transgression, anarchy and excess not to mention drugs, alcohol and sex. The early riser evoked traditional Protestant values like obedience, industry, discipline, and thrift but also, in this gladness to greet the day, a militant, even fascistic determination to look on the bright side. In short rise-and-shiners were revolting, and being trapped by so many birds getting the worm felt like being trapped in an Alfred Hitchcock remake.
Easy as it is to disregard her griping as jealousy she does make many valid points about the commercialisation of exercise, as it being a never ending quest to prove yourself able to endure more pain and suffering than the average Joe. She asks when did marathons stop being an achievement unless you’ve done one a day for a week and she has a point.
The more thorny issue Shriver grasps with both hands is the question of privilege, who has it, is it based on gender and race or has it become more nuanced and is today more to do with class and wealth. Is the privately schooled, Harvard educated daughter of an oil millionaire automatically less privileged because she is a black woman than an older white man whose education was comprehensively bog-standard and whose mother cleaned fish for a living. Not content with this Shriver goes on to take issue with the current thinking that if someone feels something then that is the truth. If someone says they feel threatened then regardless of the objective facts the accused party is guilty of threatening because the proof is that someone said they felt threatened. The problem, as this book points out, is what happens when there are two conflicting feelings. Whose feelings take precedence?
A book for those who run, those who don’t, those who hate the swarms of cyclists, those who wear the name mamil with pride and especially for all of us who despair at the ‘who’s the most hurt?’ competition modern life seems to have become.

[Martie Nees Record · Rating 3 out of 5]

Two and a Half Stars

Genre: Literary Fiction/Satire
Publisher: HarperCollins
Pub. Date: April 20, 2020

I have enjoyed Lionel Shriver's previous books but this one disappointed me. “The Motion of the Body Through Space” is an okay read if you remember that you are reading a satire regarding the many Americans who take physical fitness to extremes and how easy it is to fall into mass conformity. It can get truly tiring to read an entire novel with a one-message theme pounded into your head nonstop. If you are not in on the joke, the novel will drag on and on. And, even if you are, the story still can get on your nerves.

The tale revolves around a happily married couple who are in their early 60s, living in Hudson, N.Y. Due to profession and physical bad luck, their senior years are not going as smoothly as their earlier years. The husband is fired from his job. His self-esteem goes out the window. He decides to run a marathon although he has never had any interest in any physical activities before. That was always his wife’s gig until recently when her knees gave out. However, she did her running by herself not part of a spectator’s sport. He makes his announcement to his wife. “In a second-rate sitcom, she’d have spewed coffee across her breakfast.” Adding more tension into the marriage after the marathon, he announces a new goal: a triathlon, under the guidance of an extremely toned, pretty, personal female trainer. The author’s fictional MettleMan triathlon is her tongue in cheek way of not even bothering to hide the comparison to the real-life Metalman triathlon.

The novel is good at establishing the us-versus-them mentality. Wife to husband: “You do realize that organized sport is an industry?” Husband to wife: “Soft drinks are an industry. We still buy soda water.” The trainer puts in her two cents, “anyone who says a discouraging word about MettleMan: you're just gutless, indolent, and weak.” Suddenly, the wife is out of the window along with her husband’s job. She wearily cries, “MettleMan isn’t just an exercise regime it’s a cult…The man I fell in love with has been kidnapped.” The argument made throughout the book suggests that extreme sports might be a form of mental sickness. Once at the multisport event race—that could do permanent physical damage to most of us— the founder of MetalMan gives a speech that leans more Nazi than motivational. The wife thinks, “Leni Riefenstahl, where are you?”

Although the book can be funny, the punchline wears thin. The story had the makings of a good romp regarding our weight-fitness obsessed culture, but the satire falls short. In “Motion,” Shriver also attempts to take on parent-child issues, racial tensions, and politics, but they are hard to find due to the nonstop fixation on physical fitness. I do give her points for daring to write a novel with no likable characters. It is interesting getting into the psyche of those who train for marathons. Still, you might want to run, as fast as you can, away from this novel.

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[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't want this book to end. The dialogue was so witty and entertaining that the characters really came alive to me and I'd love to see this novel preformed as a stage play.

The story is told in the third person but predominantly from Serenata's viewpoint. It begins when Serenata's 64 year old husband, Remington, announces he is going to run a marathon, just at the point when his hitherto fitness fanatic wife, has knee problems and has therefore had to significantly reduce her excercise regime.

What unfolds is a fly-on-the-wall type experience for the reader, who witnesses first hand the impact and repercussions, of Remington's new path on the couple's relationship. Lionel Shriver has produced an excellent observation of a long-term marriage and illustrates perfectly the petty jealousies, disappointments and dissatisfactionas that all will recognise. She also provides us with some back stories so that we are given an insight - albeit through Serenata's eyes, into the lives of their two children, who make appearances themselves at several points. Again, the reader is able to observe the strained interactions and compromises that exist between family members when there's a history of issues.

The exchanges between Serenata and Remington are electric. For me there were some laugh out loud moments and also scenes such as one in the hospital towards the end as well as the event at Lake Placid, where I could almost feel the discomfort along with the characters. At first I didn't warm to either of the protagonists - although I was enjoying reading about them - but by the end I was won over. I particulatly liked the character of Deacon and would have liked him to feature more heavily. I also thought the antagonism between Serenata and Valeria contrasted well with the Serenata/Tommy connection and was very believable.

Any-one who is, has been, or knows people in a long-term relationship will 'get' this book, as will any-one who has knowledge of extreme fitness or an Ironman style Triathlon or to quote Serenata, a person who 'fetishizes fitness.' The vocabulary used in 'The Motion of the Body Through Space' is extensive and it was a pleaure to read. I highly recommended the book and thank Netgalley and HarperCollins UK for allowing me to read this advance copy.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lionel Shriver's new novel, The Motion of the Body Through Space, focuses, like a number of her previous books, on a marriage that has come under sudden tension. Serenata has had to give up her decades-long habit of running due to knee problems at the same time as her newly-retired husband, Remington, announces his ambition to train for a marathon. Serenata takes the news with bad grace; Remington can soon talk about nothing but exercise schedules and equipment, especially when he falls under the spell of an attractive female personal trainer. Shriver deals with this familiar material with characteristic insight and wit, not allowing any of her characters, including Serenata, to settle into feeling too comfortable about themselves. She's especially good on ageing; older people often get short shrift in fiction, confined to cozy stereotypes, so Shriver's no-holds-barred portrayal of the vicissitudes of living in an ageing body is refreshing.

Therefore, it's tiresome to see that, like The Mandibles, although to a lesser extent, this novel is once again marred by Shriver's increasing paranoia about 'social justice warriors'. Shriver seems to revel in causing controversy and believing that she's saying things about political correctness that nobody else dares to say, so I'm sorry to break it to her: this novel doesn't do that at all. Instead, it rehashes the boring, racist takes of any number of privileged white people. A set-piece where Remington is dismissed from his job because he doesn't get on with his black female superior, whom Shriver portrays as a totally useless 'diversity hire', is especially cringeworthy. Part of being a good novelist is understanding what is genuinely novel and necessary about what you're saying, and also how far it serves your plot. All of the material about 'woke' takes on race and gender in this novel could be removed without affecting the story Shriver is actually telling in the slightest. I've always admired the fact that Shriver is happy to challenge her own strongly-held beliefs in her novels - here, she allows herself to admit that doing crazy exercise challenges can be lifechanging for some people - but it's notable that this discipline is entirely lacking when she starts talking about what she calls 'diversity'. Indeed, her ignorance is clear. Her recent short story collection, Property, managed to steer clear of this topic and was the more effective for it; I'd suggest you read that instead.

I received a free copy of this novel from the publisher for review.

[Lizp · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing read. The satire soars. I think this book is Lionel Shriver’s finest hour.

You have to love that the main characters Remington amd Serenata’s surname is Alabaster given the race issues covered in the book. Remington’s mum was a typist and she chose his first name. I’m wondering now about Remington Steele’s mum’s reason for naming him as she did! Their kids are well drawn characters. Valeria is a dumpy, spiteful, and smug Born again Christian who keeps getting pregnant. She drives her parents crazy with her piousness and proselytising. She won’t even allow her parents to drink wine with dinner in her children’s presence. She bitterly resents her good looking and talented mum, who is a well regarded voice over artist. Deacon (whom I liked ) is a handsome and anarchic ne’er do well underachiever, who occasionally moves in with and sponges off his parents. He’s a bit like Kevin in “We need to talk about Kevin” given his glibness and insouciance. He doesn’t have the same murderous impulses though! I like that he’s called Deacon as he’s anything but Deacon like, given that his God bothering sister believes he’s a drug dealer.

There is another minor interesting character, Tommy. She’s 20, and is Serenata’s friend, albeit Serenata being 60. She’s an ingenue with an absolute troll of a brain dead mother, and Serenata takes her under her wing. Whilst she’s Serenata’s cleaner, they engage as equals. Then there’s 90 year old Griff ( Remington’s dad ) a diamond in the rough who Serenata is kind to, and whom she genuinely cares for. Serenata doesn’t care for many people, avoiding most, so her caring for Griff is big stuff. I enjoyed the following observation made about her. “She no longer fought a misanthropy that was increasingly blithe, even whimsical, and which as she approached her own oblivion was shedding its hypocrisy.”

At 64, Remington who has always been a bit of a sloth, decides to run a marathon. At the same time Serenata, who has always been a fitness freak, is heading for a knee replacement.Their serenity is threatened by Remington’s whim and Serenata’s bodily decay. They’re not long over a turbulent episode where Remington has been unfairly dismissed by his Nigerian female boss (a talentless hack) who is less than half his age, and slyly and cunningly forced him out of his job as a Civil Engineer at the Department of Transport.

Remington gets a fitness trainer called Bambi Buffer. She’s 27, buffed, and is vicious and nasty to the core. She despises Serenata, and never misses an opportunity to put the boot in. At one point, Bambi gibes at Seranata that at her age she should consider an e-bike. Seranata quickly and wittily snaps back : “ Yes, I’ve considered one of those, but it seems more cost efficient to go straight to the mobility scooter.”

Remington becomes utterly single minded and boring in his obsession with getting ultra fit. He pays bombastic Bambi an eye watering sum monthly to train him. Remington and Seranata have always preferred their own company, both enjoying mutual banter. Now he introduces Bambi and a whole crew of other fitness obsessed narcissists into their life and their home. As well as being tedious, they’re freeloaders who drink all the good wine and expect to be fed by Serenata at the drop of a hat. As I read about them, I idly thought that I’d have put a lock on the wine cellar and placed rat traps strategically at the door if I heard that lot coming. To add insult to injury, Serenata’s friend, Tommy, joins the ultra fitness madness group. When Remington completes a marathon, he moves on to doing a triathlon, and then on to some extreme Mettleman event. The tension in the marriage increases exponentially.

This is incisive writing at its best. It is witty and scathing. It focuses on ageing, long term marriage, cultural appropriation, and obsession with extreme fitness by older people in a futile attempt to stave off death. It reminds me in ways of Shriver’s earlier Double Fault.

The ending is gripping, and the afterword is beautifully done.

Kudos to Shriver on this masterpiece of writing.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5★s
The Motion of a Body Through Space is the fourteenth novel by prize-winning American-born journalist and author, Lionel Shriver. A recently jobless empty-nester, Remington Alabaster fixes on running a marathon to fill his days with purpose, just as his wife, Serenata’s arthritic knees terminate her lifelong exercise habit of running. Already thus under strain, the marriage begins to show signs of cracking as Remy takes up with an exercise guru.

Serenata is somewhat baffled by the trend: “…lately you only get credit for running yourself ragged to the point of collapse if by doing so you accomplish absolutely nothing”, she tells her father-in-law. “’Exhaustion has become an industry,’ she said, back from the kitchen. ‘Just think! These days you could allow people to carry all that lumber you lugged around, and hoist your steel beams for you, and you could charge them for the privilege. Just don’t call it a “building site,” but a “sports center.” Oh, and we’d have to come up with a snappy name - so instead of Pilates, or CrossFit, you could call your regimen … Erection.’”

From here, Shriver throws a few more challenges into the mix: expensive exercise equipment and membership on a single income, incidents pointing to the dangers inherent in such activity, a recalcitrant right knee needing urgent surgery; then stirs them up with criticism and encouragement from an evangelical daughter and the return of a delinquent son.

Serenata describes Remy’s transformation as akin to a religious conversion, and the marathon training program he has joined, like a cult: “The church of exercise delivered clarity. That is, it laid out an unambiguous set of virtues – exertion, exhaustion, the neglect of pain, the defiance of perceived limits, any distance that was longer than the one before, any speed that was swifter – which cleared up all confusion about what qualified as productive use of your day. Likewise, it defined evil: sloth.” And she begins to despair the damage it is doing to the man she married, and the marriage itself.

Shriver has her (often snarky) protagonist hold forth on many topics: she takes a little dig at “me too”, and articulates insightfully on political correctness gone crazy, religion and church, anger, racism, mimicry (cultural appropriation) in audio books and, of course, ageing, where one might experience “the bliss of sublime indifference”.

This novel is a bit of a slow burn, but the reader’s patience is rewarded with dialogue that is intelligent and often darkly funny, and when the black sheep of the family joins in, often hilarious. If sometimes a little lengthy, Shriver’s prose is clever and thought-provoking,.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins Australia.

[P K · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me preface by saying I’m being extra critical of this book because I think Lionel Shriver is a smarter writer than this. Many of her other books, notably “We Need to Talk About Kevin” show such depth and insight, as well as complex and developing characters. This book, from an accomplished and experienced writer, read to me as kind of a lazy veneer for airing her own, increasingly unsympathetic and condescending points of view. This was especially evident in the character (straw-man) of Lucinda Okonkwo, Remington’s former boss at the DOT. Shriver obviously has a bone to pick about accusations of racism and cultural appropriation that have been leveled against her in the past. I don’t think she’s racist and I think her points about the overreach of cultural appropriation accusations to fiction authors are sound. So if you have a good argument, why make Lucinda such an incredibly one-dimensional open and shut incompetent buffoon? This is a classic bad communication strategy. Instead of presenting her opponent’s point of view as they themselves might put it, then pointing out the errors, she presents the argument in a way no one would agree with, thus pandering only to sycophants who already agree with her and don’t care about actually resolving the issue. This line of reasoning is dead-horse beaten again in the parallel story line of Serenata increasingly losing work as a voice actor because of public scrutiny of her accents (deemed cultural appropriation).
The book as a whole was SUPER heavy-handed. The diatribes that pass for dialogues between Serenata and Remington are so drawn out and excessively explanatory that you’re painfully aware they’re performing, which really takes you out of the narrative. Shriver approaches these characters as a ventriloquist, they’re just mediums for her own diatribes. I know you shouldn’t confuse fiction with the actual views of the author, but in this case it seems justified based on her previous essays and speeches (linked at the bottom of this review). In addition, the dialogue was hard to follow. It was often difficult to tell who was speaking because Shriver employs a stylistically convoluted sentence structure that often came off as acrobatically show-offy rather than flowing naturally.
The book was also unbearably superior. Why create such laughably put-down-able punching bags of characters like Valeria and Bambi? They’re like characters in children’s stories, leaving the reader no doubt how they’re supposed to feel about them because no redeeming facets or humanizing subtlety is applied to them. The worst part is that she expects us to find it satisfying, clearly, because otherwise it would just come off as cruel. Well I didn’t find it satisfying, and it did come off as just cruel.
In short, my bias towards this book extends in two directions. Because I’ve been a fan of Shriver for many years, I enjoyed this book simply because she wrote it and because the story did contain some of the elements I’ve always found appealing about her writing. For example, I love how her books are typically organized around a central and really topical issue. This makes her novels consistently thought-provoking. Conversely, knowing what she’s capable of, this belligerent and petulant book is beneath her.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ot...

[Lee at ReadWriteWish · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think sometimes I am so engrossed with Australian authors that a lot of US ones pass me by. I know so little about Shriver that I didn’t even know Lionel was a pen name and Shriver is actually a woman. I’ve heard of We Need to Talk About Kevin, of course, but its themes felt a little too dark for my liking, so I avoided it. But now that I’ve read The Motion of the Body Through Space, I’ve become an instant fan.

I loved this book. I believe it's good enough to become a literary classic. However, I do think it will suffer from poor timing. I have a feeling people will be reticent to admit to enjoying it in the midst of the BLM movement. Not that Shriver nor her lead characters are racist but unfortunately they are faced with accusations of racism and contemplate those accusations in a manner which many readers might take exception to in the current political climate. If this is the case, it will be a great shame.

Serenata and Remington are in their early 60s and, although they haven't had the perfect family life, they've always been there for each other. Serenata is an audiobook narrator who made her name in the business as an expert at accents. Now, however, those accents of POC are not being so well received and she’s struggling to get work. Her husband, Remington, adores his job so when he is fired in questionable circumstances which could be interpreted as merely because he is a white male, he begins to find purpose in this forced early retirement environment with excessive exercise. He decides, much to Serenata's chagrin, he’s going to complete a marathon, and then, when this lofty ambition for a man of his age and fitness level (not overweight but office worker low) seems not lofty enough, a triathlon event.

Even though Shriver centres the story around the insanity of extreme fitness fanatics, they are pretty much just a metaphor for any overly zealous and socially isolating group. The book could have easily been about a religious cult, an antivac movement, or a group of people who refuse to eat carbs. Actually, The Motion of the Body Through Space's theme isn't to warn us away from the dangers of exercise, it's a social commentary of contemporary life, focusing especially on the intolerance people have for the aged and ageing, and the utter contempt that is currently being heaped upon the Boomer generation (the word Boomer has even made its way into the dictionary as an insult, and the 'Karen' slur is often attributed to people from this generation).

Serenata even admits that for a man in Remington’s newfound position, running, swimming and cycling should be the preferred road to go down, when the alternative could be drinking, eating and gambling. Shriver and Serenata prove, however, that obsessive behaviour in any arena can cause great stress to your health and happiness. And how Serenata and Remington’s marriage disintegrates so much from this one-sided hobby is both realistic and disheartening in equal measures.

Yes, the book is going for thought provoking, but its humour was the highlight for me. Serenata and Remington's banter was reminiscent of many famous comic duos. I also thought her interactions with the other characters, especially their children and her young protege/neighbour, were hilarious and, despite the many admittedly negative aspects of her character, I loved Serenata and her dry sarcastic wit.

I suppose critics might say that Shriver needed something more in the way of a plot; that a grown ass highly intelligent man being led around by a blonde bimbo PT while his wife harped on about her own dwindling athletic ability isn’t enough for a full length novel, but I would heartily disagree. I never found Serenata’s observations repetitive or boring, and Shriver's prose and characterisation were extremely well done. I was also a big fan of her flawlessly written dialogue.

I'd definitely recommend this book and can't wait to try Shriver's other published books. 5 out of 5

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

“People who exercise less than you are pathetic; people who exercise more than you are nuts.”

There is a woman in the town next to me who is always walking. I see her miles away from her home, head down, just walking for what must be hours. Every single day. I saw her Fitbit stats once, she walked 4,700 miles in one year. The best I can do is hike a local mountain; the last bit is so steep it takes my breath away. I wish someone would yell, “YOU ARE METTLEMAN!” when I get to the top.

This book was fantastic and certainly topical. Remington and Serenata Alabaster (note the last name) are a couple in their early 60s. Remington, recently let go from his job with the Albany DOT, where he worked for more than 30 years, decides one day he is going to run a marathon. And six months later he does. And then he obsessively trains for a triathlon (think Ironman). Serenata was always the family athlete, running every single day, despite the weather, but a lifetime of running has ruined her right knee.

I found this book to have several themes that can be discussed: marriage, competition, the exercise craze and the “cult” that goes with it, a forced retirement, side stories on race relations and religion. Shriver never shies from controversial themes (I find her controversial), so this book was no different. I found myself being Serenata on many occasions, "you're too old to be training this hard, you need to take a break!" A fascinating look at some topics that are infrequently discussed.

[Sarah Potemkin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would actively recommend against reading this. An unpleasant narrator (who, after having read the June 2020 New Yorker article about the author, seems to be a thinly-veiled version of Shriver herself) plus too many right-wing screeds — especially for this current environment.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Motion of a Body Through Space is the fourteenth novel by prize-winning American-born journalist and author, Lionel Shriver. The audio version is read by Laurence Bouvard who, unfortunately, chooses to give Remington such a raspy, grating voice that it would have the reader wondering how someone with Serenata’s dulcet tones could ever have married him.


A recently jobless empty-nester, Remington Alabaster fixes on running a marathon to fill his days with purpose, just as his wife, Serenata’s arthritic knees terminate her lifelong exercise habit of running. Already thus under strain, the marriage begins to show signs of cracking as Remy takes up with an exercise guru.

Serenata is somewhat baffled by the trend: “…lately you only get credit for running yourself ragged to the point of collapse if by doing so you accomplish absolutely nothing”, she tells her father-in-law. “’Exhaustion has become an industry,’ she said, back from the kitchen. ‘Just think! These days you could allow people to carry all that lumber you lugged around, and hoist your steel beams for you, and you could charge them for the privilege. Just don’t call it a “building site,” but a “sports center.” Oh, and we’d have to come up with a snappy name - so instead of Pilates, or CrossFit, you could call your regimen … Erection.’”

From here, Shriver throws a few more challenges into the mix: expensive exercise equipment and membership on a single income, incidents pointing to the dangers inherent in such activity, a recalcitrant right knee needing urgent surgery; then stirs them up with criticism and encouragement from an evangelical daughter and the return of a delinquent son.

Serenata describes Remy’s transformation as akin to a religious conversion, and the marathon training program he has joined, like a cult: “The church of exercise delivered clarity. That is, it laid out an unambiguous set of virtues – exertion, exhaustion, the neglect of pain, the defiance of perceived limits, any distance that was longer than the one before, any speed that was swifter – which cleared up all confusion about what qualified as productive use of your day. Likewise, it defined evil: sloth.” And she begins to despair the damage it is doing to the man she married, and the marriage itself.

Shriver has her (often snarky) protagonist hold forth on many topics: she takes a little dig at “me too”, and articulates insightfully on political correctness gone crazy, religion and church, anger, racism, mimicry (cultural appropriation) in audio books and, of course, ageing, where one might experience “the bliss of sublime indifference”.

This novel is a bit of a slow burn, but the reader’s patience is rewarded with dialogue that is intelligent and often darkly funny, and when the black sheep of the family joins in, often hilarious. If sometimes a little lengthy, Shriver’s prose is clever and thought-provoking.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5*

When you reach a certain age, and retirement looms large and real, the best way to embrace it, and avoid the depressing reality of this huge step towards old age, is to make sure that you have plenty to do to keep yourself occupied.....preferably things that you enjoy, and are life enhancing and affirming.....the empty spaces created by no longer going out to work need to be filled, but for some people, more than that is needed.
The loss of status, loss of purpose and loss of self esteem are things which are probably harder to define, and definitely harder to substitute.
The ‘hero’ of this book is Remington, and he is feeling such losses .....his inability to cope with changes at work.....especially the politically correct changes that make no sense to him, have forced him into an unlooked for and unwelcome early retirement, so, he decides to fill his new found leisure time with preparations to run a marathon.
His wife Serenata has her own reasons for feeling dismayed by, and critical of his new found passion,.
She’s a complex character, who can’t hide her disdain for her husband’s efforts to become an athlete, but when, after the marathon, things escalate to silly, possibly dangerous levels, and Remington seems besotted with someone whose motivations are certainly suspect, he will discover just who really has his best interests at heart.
There are some wonderfully diverse, weird and interesting characters here....all with their own hang ups and sometimes deep seated reasons for their desire to challenge themselves, and prove something.....

I think it was the title of this book that first attracted me, and an interest in an author I hadn’t previously read.
I found it hugely entertaining, funny and witty, but with a message, and ultimately quietly uplifting.....the interactions between Serenata and Remington were cleverly done, as were the descriptions of their relationship with their grown up children. Their Daughter is especially interesting......
This book surprised me, and I’m glad I discovered it.

[SueLucie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lionel Shriver is a classy writer and I have enjoyed everything I’ve read by her. This latest novel is no exception, I loved every word of it. She makes razor-sharp observations and expresses them so well. One subject she tackles is political correctness in the workplace and she writes Remington’s employment tribunal brilliantly - excruciating stuff. The preoccupation with physical challenges that has sprung up in societies that have enjoyed peace and prosperity for decades also comes under fire. Even more interestingly for me, she looks at the effect on long-term partners when one of them takes up an interest that the other cannot or will not share. The sparring between Serenata and Remington is a joy to read.

They had always been a talky couple, but the danger of all those words was talking around feelings, or over feelings, or about feelings by way of avoiding actually feeling feelings, and the real moments between them took place in the interstices between the words. This interstice was more than a crack; it was widening to a maw.

The other characters are fascinating, too - I’m thinking mostly of the monstrous fitness guru Bambi (whose true colours are shown devastatingly right at the end) and the Alabaster children.

Her thoughts on pain and incapacity touched me. The fact that those lucky enough to have reached old age relatively free from illness or injury should be surprised when they start to have difficulties physically. I am guilty of this and found her insights sobering.

Pain put you in a lonely place, for if you weren’t feeling it you didn’t believe in it, and if you were feeling it you couldn’t really believe in anything else. The state was so separating that it amounted to a form of solitary confinement.

With thanks to Harper Collins, Borough Press via NetGalley for the opportunity to read an ARC.

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Okay, boomer...”

Serenata has always been a fitness freak, no day complete without its allocated hours of exercises and running. So much so that, now she has reached sixty, her knees have given up the unequal struggle and forced her to learn to take things easy. Still trying to come to terms with this, she finds it rather cruel and insensitive when her husband Remington decides that, after a lifetime of sedentary laziness, he will run a marathon. Besides, she hates the new culture of fitness sweeping the country – when she started her punishing regime all those years ago, she was unusual, and that was a large part of the charm. Now when she’s out cycling it seems half the world is there alongside her, and for her running was always something you did on your own to get fit, not in crowds for pleasure. Plus, is there just a little jealousy in there? Serenata has never run a marathon… not that she wanted to, of course, but still. She is honest enough to admit to herself that she thoroughly resents Remington’s new-found enthusiasm…

This is my first Shriver so I don’t know how it compares to her other books. This one is written with a great deal of humour from the perspective of a grumpy older woman struggling to take modern attitudes seriously and derisive of the hubristic belief of the young that they have somehow invented anti-racism and feminism and know all the answers. Anyone who reads my tweets or reviews may not be too surprised to learn that this resonated strongly with me! Shriver mercilessly mocks the worst of political correctness and the ridiculous extremes of identity politics which have made us wary even of referring to ourselves as men or women for fear that that will offend someone somewhere somehow, or of inadvertently using a term that was considered not just acceptable but progressive five years ago but is now apparently an indication of some hideously unforgivable Neanderthal attitude. Poor Serenata gets very tired of people assuming that because she’s white, middle-class, middle-aged and straight, that that automatically must mean she’s racist, homophobic and downright stupid. Oh, Serenata, I feel your pain!

Remington, meantime, is going through a mid-life crisis, complete with an infatuation with another woman, his fitness coach. Serenata realises that her open mockery of his marathon ambition is driving a wedge into their long and happy marriage, so tries her best to show him support. Shriver is very funny about the whole fitness industry, where one marathon is no longer enough – people have to run at least four, consecutively, in a desert, if they want respect these days. To her horror, Remington is not satisfied by his marathon. Instead he now decides he wants to do the Mettleman Triathlon – a gruelling all-day race involving cycling, swimming and running. Serenata feels this may literally kill him, but her earlier ridicule means Remington puts her warnings down to mere petulance. Will he survive? Even if he does, will their marriage survive? Does Serenata even want it to?

I don’t know how young people will react to this – it may be making too much fun of subjects they erroneously think they own. But as someone roughly the same age as Serenata, I found it sharp and perceptive, and hilarious. I’m sure when I was young I was just as convinced my elders were all idiots, but now that I’m old I can see that the young have their fair share of idiocy too, and I look forward gleefully to the day when the youth of today are old (as they will be, sooner than they think) and are being told by their grandchildren’s generation that they failed in everything and know nothing about anything. Serenata is an unlikely heroine, but I’m sure she speaks for many of us who have spent a lifetime fighting all the ’isms only to find ourselves derided, dismissed, patronised or ignored by those who benefit every day from our achievements – even for many who would never admit it for fear of not seeming groovy/cool/woke/insert-latest-self-congratulatory-buzzword-here.

So, highly recommended for grumpy older women everywhere, and please feel free to call me Serenata from now on… *smiles sweetly*

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, HarperCollins, via NetGalley.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was too negative for my liking. And I disagreed on too many aspects.

Basically, I felt that the narrator in this book was continuously whining. Maybe it was meant to be humorous, but I didn't read it hat way. According to the narrator everything sucks: mainly our obsession with fitness, but also that we disapprove of cultural appropriation, misogyny, gender issues and racism, and that we worry about climate change.

I'm interested in long distance sports (though I myself have only once run a 1/2 marathon...), so I was hoping this book would be fun to read. Occasionally, I enjoyed the rants about extreme fitness wannabes, but it was definitely not enough for me to like this book.

Thank you Harper Collins and Edelweiss for the ARC.

[Kamil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shamefully there's one particular moment that was screaming racist to me.

[Regina Andreassen · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars - What a ride! A smart, engaging, sharp book but slightly overdone. I would have enjoyed it more if it were shorter. I have nothing against long novels, in fact, I adore long novels if the story merits the length; but this book would have been more effective and agile had it been shorter.

This novel has a strong start and a solid and persuasive plot development. The story is clever and original; it is socially relevant and confronting, yet the book does not take itself too seriously. I appreciate Lionel Shriver’s wit and her ability to criticise current attitudes that many other authors do not dare to publicly object, even if they secretly share Lionel’s stance. Shriver’s protagonists reflect that: they question and mock certain aspects of modern culture, particularly simplistic and unbalanced views.

Serenata and Remington are two captivating characters. I started disliking Serenata but by chapter 3 I was seduced by her unique
and blunt personality. Serenata and Remington’s respective names symbolise their personalities and their struggles; understanding this is crucial when examining the dynamics of their marriage and the ways in which they relate to other people.

One of my issues with the book is that some sections feel contrived. Some characters were superfluous to the story yet we see too much of them. Valeria, for instance, why is she there? I understand what Lionel Shriver was trying to convey by introducing Valeria, but her presence in the book did not work for me. Valeria doesn't feel real, she is one-dimensional and comes across as a very manufactured character. She has no hues; in fact, she does not add any value to the novel, instead, she obstructs the flow of the book. A similar argument can be made for Nancee (spelt that way); whilst Deacon, in contrast, was a rather amusing character and relevant to the plot. I would have liked to see more of him but...not with Bambi (whom I detest)...that twist was a misstep, which takes me to another issue with the book: the afterword.

In spite of its strengths; the denouement or ‘afterword’ of the novel was unnecessarily long. Frankly, the ending was artless, and almost juvenile. I was very disappointed by it for it diminishes the quality of the novel. Lionel Shriver could have given the reader a far better resolution, she has the talent for it, so what happened?

The Motion of The Body Through Space was just as good as I expected it to be; albeit not as good as We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Please, ignore the comments that maintain that the book is racist, there is nothing racist about this book; people making those comments are precisely the type of people who hold views that Shriver’s critiques due to their fallacious and utterly simplistic nature. I will definitely be reading more of Shriver's books! This one in hardcover goes to my collection 😊

[Robert Blumenthal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well it appears that the eminent Lionel Shriver has become quite cranky, which is revealed in both an interview in the New Yorker and in this latest novel. Here she goes after the extreme fitness obsession and sidetracks to the topic of political correctness, throwing in a bit of affirmative action. In the article in the New Yorker, she revealed some disdain for immigrants, and this comes through in this novel.

Serenata, a women in her mid sixties, has been obsessed with exercising all of her life. Recently, her knees have given out on her and she cannot exercise as she used to. Her husband Remington, recently having to retire early because of an "incident" at his work, decides he wants to run a marathon. He has never shown much interest in exercising, and Serenata feels that he is throwing it in her face and insensitive to her disability to exercise much at all. Eventually, Remington decides to compete in a tri-athlon, which involves biking, swimming and running great distances. And to top all this competing and marital discord, his trainer is a young and extremely attractive young woman named Bambi.

Most of this is played for satire, and the book is extremely well written (well, it is Lionel Shriver after all). I enjoyed most of the book and was especially fond of the dynamics between Remington and Serenata and Shriver's take on marriage in general. I had a bit of difficulty in the description of how Remington lost his job--it seemed a bit too much of a rant against political correctness. I better related to the take on extreme fitness and all the hype around it. Remington was really risking his life doing his training and competing, and whether his wife really cared for him trying to get him to stop or was just jealous was an interesting exploration by the author.

There is an afterword to this affair, and it is Lionel Shriver at her absolute best. She describes the dynamics of getting older and all of the implications thereof. It is a beautifully written and ultimately very realistic and positive take on the issue. As an older individual, I was really able to relate to it.

[Jen Tidman · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading a new novel from Lionel Shriver, having enjoyed We Need To Talk About Kevin and The Post Birthday World, but unfortunately, I clearly hadn't been paying attention to the controversy surrounding her, as otherwise, I wouldn't have picked it up.

Straight off the bat, something seemed off. The main protagonist, Serenata really came across as ‘author as character’, and so some of the views she had, made me feel pretty uncomfortable. As well as being infuriatingly too-cool-for-school and stopping liking things as soon as they become popular, she has problems with people disapproving of cultural appropriation, racism, misogyny and gender issues, or caring about climate change.

OK.

So, I DNFed the book and decided to do a bit of investigation online.

In 2016, Shriver gave a controversial speech about cultural appropriation. Having been criticized for her depiction of Latino and African-American characters in The Mandibles, she responded that accusations of racism and cultural appropriation were tantamount to censorship.

Then in 2018, she had a whine about diversity in publishing suggesting that a manuscript "written by a gay transgender Caribbean who dropped out of school at seven" would be published "whether or not said manuscript is an incoherent, tedious, meandering and insensible pile of mixed-paper recycling".

Yeah.

As you can hopefully tell by my feed, I would rather read a million books by diverse LGBTQ/POC authors, than another word of what is genuinely tedious and meandering self-indulgent drivel by this or any other white, middle-aged, right-wing boomer.

Basically, do not buy this, do not read this - support one of the many, many diverse and own voices authors out who are writing inclusive, incisive, and interesting fiction that actually reflects the world around us.

Thanks to Harper Collins for the digital copy - I hope they can appreciate me giving an honest review!

[Greg Zimmerman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horrible. Just awful. Mean-spirited, sanctimonious, and self-righteous. As a runner, I thought it’d be fun or at least amusing to read a novel satirizing the “cult of fitness.” Haha, you got me there, Shriver. We ARE a little weird.

But, no. This is just straight-up mocking, mean, grouchy, and devoid of any parody value whatsoever. She literally compares people who exercise, run marathons, and do triathlons to brainwashed members of a cult and even, in one memorably horrendous paragraph, to Nazis. Again, that’s not parody or satire. That’s just being an asshole.

Furthermore, the story itself is so basic, so sadly cliché. An old guy gets hooked on fitness, and his wife disapproves, feels abandoned. Shriver even names the comely, booby fitness trainer Bambi Buffer, for fuck’s sake! Cmon!

Look, if you’re going to write satire, you owe your reader at least a passable understanding of what you’re satirizing. Shriver gets so much wrong. It’s embarrassing. And various mildly racist tangents having nothing to do with the plot just solidify the self-indulgence.

And finally, her protagonist is about the most insufferable person you could possibly imagine. I can only guess she must be a stand-in for the person who could pen such a wretched novel.

I only finished this because I was enjoying how much I hated it. If that was her goal, to troll people who enjoy running, then kudos to you, Shriver. You done pissed me off good.