Abominations: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction

by Lionel Shriver

A striking collection of essays from the prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Should We Stay or Should We Go, So Much for That, and The Post-Birthday World. Novelist, cultural observer, and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us. Bringing together thirty-five works curated from her many columns, features, essays, and op-eds for the likes of the Spectator , the Guardian, the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, speeches and reviews, and some unpublished pieces, Abominations reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly skeptical, cutting, and contrarian, this collection showcases Shriver’s piquant opinions on a wide range of topics, including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care, and taxes. In her characteristically frank manner, Shriver shrewdly skewers the concept of language “crimes,” while chafing at arbitrary limitations on speech and literature that crimp artistic expression and threaten intellectual freedom. Each essay in Abominations reflects sentiments that have “brought hell and damnation down on my head,” as she cheerfully explains, and have threatened her with “cancellation” more than once. Throughout, Shriver offers insights on her novels and explores the perks and pitfalls of becoming a successful artist. In revisiting old pieces and rejected essays, Shriver updates and expands her thinking. “Enlightened” progressive readers will find plenty to challenge here. But they may find, to their surprise, insights with which they agree. A timely synthesis of Shriver's expansive work, Abominations reveals this provocative, talented writer at her most assured.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Politics, Autobiography, Memoir, Biography

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2022

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

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audiobook….read by Lionel Shriver
…..11 hours and 36 minutes….

“Abominations”…..
Definition:
a thing that causes disgust or hatred.
For example…
If you see a neighbor kick an old blind dog that’s done nothing wrong, you might remark, “That kind of cruelty is an abomination!”.

So?….
…..what are these “selected essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction”….all about? Disgust? Hatred? …..I don’t think so.
I don’t think that’s exactly the purpose. …..
But….
whoever wrote the blurb, isn’t far off.
In fact I’m impressed with just how great the blurb got this book right, Lionel Shriver right.
“Novelist, cultural observer, and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous points of views, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has over taken us”.

Shibboleth….
Definition:
a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as out-
moded or no longer important.

LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR……
“I thought these essays were FASCINATING…..I listened to every word — I didn’t understand ‘every’ word….(but understood plenty). I’m sitting here thinking — trying to describe MY EXPERIENCE of these essays:
Topics about….
politics, diversity, (anti-diversity and general problems with the labeling of diversity), racism, (from more points of view than all the tea in China)
family, (her parents, her own tomboy youth growing up with 2 brothers in North Carolina- her name change at age 15 from Margaret to Lionel and the most tender heartfelt personal part was Lionel’s deep love for he brother who died: obesity related), friendships, (not just surface friendship, but profound impactful friendships….I wish I was close friends with Lionel…I seriously like her),
sexual identity, (more sexual identity issues explored than the most colorful rainbow),
marriage, (Jeff, her husband), tennis, (I wanted to play with Lionel), running, gender, immigration, (the rise of immigration in the UK), healthcare, “medical bullying take over”,
taxes, (fascinating tax information for people - like my own daughter -with duel citizenship), food, drinks, lazy times, artistic expression, TV shows, movies, world history,
mortality, (it’s amazing the widespread conversations that most of us have not fully had),
the pandemic, education, contemplating thoughts while hiking alone (note: not thinking about being born a female)….
American and UK differences, poverty, wealth, technology, fiction writing, writing, (great tips for new writers),
editing, publishing, literary novels vs. pop novels, authors (she is friends with Scott Spencer), the author Tim Winston, tequila, food, fat chat, justice, injustice, price-fixing, shrinkage of products, affordable healthcare, Obamacare,, lying, truths, Pharmaceutical information, well-made products, (not advocating IKEA for this)….
AND…
*More* fascinating discussions about books, writing, (exploiting other cultures vs. make believe fiction storytelling), publishers, Newspaper and magazine articles where some of Lionel’s essays were published, agents, (writers on both sides of the Atlantic) book tours, reviews, book comments (Lionel doesn’t read comments or participate on social media, but she knew a lot of details about Facebook),
success, (feelings about financial success after years of not), economic realities for most authors, grammar, quotes, quotation marks, dialogue and plots, (writers and editors will enjoy contemplating these topics along side Lionel),
scarf tying, (yes…scarf tying)….lol….
White supremacy, free speech, freedom, pigeonholing others and ourselves …..etc. etc. etc.
EVERY TOPIC UNDER THE SUN ….and more…
So…..
Give me a minute here ….my brain is intrinsically gearing up for this ongoing book review….TRYING TO LEAVE MY EXPERIENCE ….
…..wanting desperately to relate more than simply saying this is a fantastic book…..[BUT IT IS] > fantastic!,,
HERE’S my best -experience analogy:
Lionel Shriver took surgery to my brain….
a little like ‘oral’ brain surgery —
Such as real brain surgery….
*Craniotomy* —
—a piece of the skull is removed to give doctors access to the brain to remove a brain tumor, abnormal tissue, blood, or blood clots; relieve pressure after an injury or stroke; repair a brain aneurysm or skull fractures; or treat other brain conditions……
I FEEL CLEANSED…from Lionel’s — very thought provoking oral- brain-surgery-essays.
One of my very - if not MOST FAVORITE NON FICTION collection of essays….EVER!!!

Lionel Shriver can orbit the whole world to travel other worlds…..be it inward reflecting or statistical factional important world issues….
She translates language, speech, cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphors, understanding of ideas, encoding the process of thoughts into communication….
She is simply brilliant!
Lionel can write.
Lionel can think.
Lionel can speak.
Lionel Shriver articulates significant importance brilliantly… and less important things brilliantly.
When she shared about personal matters — with love and intimacy, I wanted to cry.
When she talked about the scary conditions of the world — I wanted to share a drink with her (I don’t even drink - but would be willing to start if I could spend a day with this woman)

Editorial Endorsements:
….Shriver is a master of the misanthrope—Time
….Should be mandatory reading for college freshman—Bret Stephens, New York Times.
….Spirited, incendiary, entertaining, and sure to ruffle some feathers—Kirkus Reviews


Other books I’ve read by Lionel Shriver
….We Need to Talk About Kevin
….The Mandibles
….Should We Stay or Should We Go
….The Motion of the Body
….Big Brother
….Property: Stories Between Two Novellas
….So Much For That ….(my favorite fiction book ….for so many reasons - don’t even get me started)

Favorite Shriver NON-FICTION: (easy!) “Abominations”

Lucky me…. I still have more books to read by Shriver!!!

5 strong stars.

[Nat K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't be fooled by the cute fluffy kitten on the cover (assuming you may or may not have seen what the wee mite is sitting in the middle of…yikes).

Words have bite. Closed minds are shut tighter than a steel trap. Which is fitting that one is on the book cover. Opinions are a dime a dozen. Though with inflation, they're probably not even worth that much. And opinions are just that. An Aussie saying is "putting in your ten cent's worth". Even scientific fact will often have professionals in the same field of expertise diametrically opposed. So what makes any of us think that our opinions are so terribly important? And that we can judge another’s intrinsic value by the views they hold?

To ad lib something Ricky Gervais once said, we love to be outraged.

As did Ben Elton in his clever book from 2019 Identity Crisis, in which an old school detective was unable to focus on his job, as he was too busy focusing on what not to say, “putting his foot in it” so speak, with the new world of political correctness going a step or two too far.

"...outrage and counter-outrage. Everyone was looking for martyrs. Everyone was looking for scapegoats. No one seemed to be in any mood to compromise."

The world has become ever more divided and divisive, whilst supposedly becoming more inclusive. It’s a weird dichotomy.

This collection of essays from Lionel Shriver covers a diverse range of topics. My immediate thoughts on finishing this the other day were: intelligent, informative, brave. With just the right amount of humour. Especially brave, in light of the absolute cancel culture which seems to be the emotion du jour, alongside outrage. Don’t like what somebody’s said? Cancel them. Press delete. Block. They become persona non grata. No longer invited to dinner and crossed off the Christmas list.

“You can disagree without being disagreeable.”
- Ruth Bader Ginsberg

It seems we’ve lost the ability to have a good old debate. To agree to disagree. It’s all or nothing now. You’re either left of centre or right of centre and never the twain shall meet. Which is, of course, ridiculous. People change, times change, events in history affect how we view the world.

Ms. Shriver’s essays range from the serious, with ones about ageing and medical technology, and how we remain so determined to keep people alive, when perhaps the kinder thing would be to allow them to exit this mortal plane with dignity. The essays on obesity and “fatism”, being unable to look beyond someone’s outward appearance and judging them accordingly, were heart rending. Especially as these words were directly in relation to her older brother, whom she lost due to medical complications of just that. It put her book Big Brother which I read some years ago into a different context. The pain that families go through when they are unable to help.

We read about climate change, the IRA, Brexit, the madness of cyclists in London, the imbalance of the taxation system and our dependence on social security, Covid lockdowns and how people take words out of context.

I particularly loved the essay about friendship and its loss. The cruel sting of no longer mattering to someone, whether the friendship ended due to an obvious falling out, or simply drifted away like clouds in the sky.

Being a bit of a news junkie, I enjoyed the discussions put forward by Ms.Shriver. Did I agree with all of them? Of course not. Nor would she expect me to. But I could appreciate her point of view. Which is what it all’s about really. Widening your horizons and expanding your mind.

It took me longer than expected to finish this. Simply because I would only read one or two essays every few days. Maybe even with a longer gap between. I really needed to ponder on her words, and let them sink in. Perhaps others will be able to read this cover to cover. Either way, it’s well worthwhile.

And it's not all doom and gloom. There is plenty of humour throughout. You just have to be open to noticing it.

I’ll end this with words from my favourite Writer, Haruki Murakami:

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

During the nine months a year I live in London, I'm regarded as an archconservative nut. When I fly home to the United States, I transform, mid-Atlantic, to a leftist radical - with the same opinions. That's because most of my progressive social positions are taken as the norm in Britain by just about everybody

Warning: this book is not going to go down well with anyone who doesn't relish having their (progressive, Left) views and opinions challenged and confronted, so echo chamber denizens who only want to see their own positions reflected back might want to read this with caution.

Me, I recalled the passionate arguments that we had as students when, despite our broad agreements on topics like feminism, racism, sexuality, history, art, it was the nuances and our positions on a spectrum that were up for debate. Shriver has that same passion, the intelligence, the articulacy that make these essays both hugely enjoyable and - at times - absolutely infuriating.

Straddling everything from flashpoint topics (gender, Brexit, identity politics, immigration) to the almost random (Ikea, punctuation) and almost-of-the-moment (Covid, gender-neutral pronouns, the dismantling of monuments), she enjoys her own iconoclastic and controversial status.

Importantly, what Shriver brings to the table - even when we disagree - is intelligence and nuance: too many of these topics are often treated in divisive ways from far apart, even extreme, ends of a spectrum, when some delving beneath the surface for gradations and fine distinctions would be more fruitful. Indeed, too often we think we know what Shriver thinks via soundbites on Twitter etc.- her actual essays are far less polemical, her arguments far more reasoned than social media allows.

Nevertheless, there is a sense that she's sometimes rather gleefully courting controversy and, perhaps, some wilful blindness - her essay on immigration particularly maddened me for, for example, the way she assumes that racial and ethnic groups will always stick together as separate communities and which ignores the level of mixed-race relationships that exist in London, say. It's also frustrating that she uses 'Leftist' as a pejorative and essentialist term, despite the relativity she flags up in the way she herself is regarded as left-of-centre in the US.

Overall, then, this collection is classic Shriver: defiant, fierce, smart and unafraid, using logic to dismantle some of the contrary positions we find ourselves in. She doesn't always expect us to agree with her or even not to find her opinions offensive but, most of all, she is asserting here her democratic right to free and opinionated speech.

Many thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5★s
Abominations is a collection of thirty-five essays about a wide range of topics by prize-winning best-selling American author, Lionel Shriver. She applies her insight, her talent for argument and her succinct prose to subjects like her teenage diary, a dying friend, cancel culture, writers blocked, the fashionable argot and privilege, semantics in arguments about gender, the laziness of buzzwords, patriotism, nationalism and loyalty to one’s birth or adopted country, Brexit, immigration, and paying tax.

She offers a sermon rejecting religious faith, a letter to her younger self about what makes one happy, a tribute to her older brother, and she outlines the inspiration for her novel, Big Brother. She describes being an American ex-pat in Belfast, and film festival humiliation at Cannes.

She comments on playing tennis: “It’s fabulous to be able to thwack anything that hard, over and over, and not get arrested”; on fitness junkies, libertarians and the 2016 US election, Ikea’s real genius (“sooner or later, it falls apart”), an oppressively gendered world, the drive to politically decontaminate public memorials, and what happiness is (not a position, a trajectory).

On cycling in London: “I’ve biked dozens of American states and all over Western Europe, and nowhere have I encountered a cycling culture so cutthroat, vicious, reckless, hostile, and violently competitive as London’s”. On diversity quotas: “unfair, antimeritocratic, and culturally destructive”.

She gives the reader a very tongue-in-cheek list of her activities during pandemic lockdown, an opinion on the cost of health care in an ageing population, and an account of friendship, ongoing, fractured and mended. She muses on end of life and where one might draw the line with acceptable debility.

She bemoans the deteriorating standards of prose and speech, explaining her tendency to mark up casual conversation with a red pencil, and theorises on civil unrest during lockdown, BLM zealotry and the economy.

Her controversial essay on fiction and identity politics, on authenticity, is particularly well thought-out with many valid points. And her essay on quoteless dialogue in literature will resonate with most readers and many in the publishing trade: “I’ve yet to hear any reader despair, ‘This would have been a great book, if it weren’t for all those pesky quotation marks!’”

Her thought-provoking opinions pull no punches, and while many will disagree with what she says, this is a worthwhile read, even if some of the topics are of little interest to some, thus tempting skimming. Diverse, provocative, interesting.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Harper Collins UK.

[Janelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve enjoyed the novels I’ve read by Lionel Shriver and was interested to read this collection of nonfiction pieces written over the last twenty years or so, even knowing I probably wouldn’t agree with her on everything. It was an entertaining and thought provoking read, she obviously writes well, some of it is funny, some parts made me roll my eyes and I was even bored by one (I’m really not into tennis). The best pieces for me were about her family and the articles about death and dying.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this is...stimulating! Abominations is a collection of some of Lionel Shriver’s essays and articles: they are well written, intelligent and thoughtful, and they contain opinions which are a mixture of the subtle, the bombastic, the deliberately provocative and sometimes the just plain wrong.

Many of these pieces challenge my existing views. Although she describes herself as an iconoclast (put more crudely, she’s often a controversialist), Shriver is certainly no Katie Hopkins. I don’t agree with Shriver on a lot of things, but she has the intelligence and the nuanced approach to make me really think about what she’s saying and about what I believe. There is often more than a kernel of truth in what she says – about how someone saying that they “feel” hurt or bullied is often enough to kill any argument, or that no-one has the right not to be offended, for example. In my view she often takes these arguments too far, but she does so in straightforward, readable, often witty prose and with great clarity, so that when I disagree with something I know exactly what I disagree with and have to think carefully about why.

Shriver mainly avoids lazy or disingenuous arguments – but not quite always. She does sometimes employ the controversialist’s trick of representing wacky extremism as mainstream thought, for example, but she also makes some telling points about what some current trends may really mean for literature, free thinking and society in general. She is also, in my view, just wrong at times. For example, she says “Elaborate avoidance of words whose etymology has nothing to do with race, like “blackball” or “blacklist” serve [sic] no purpose beyond preening.” The point though, is not the etymology of the word, but the connotations it has acquired; that words like blackbird, which are simply descriptors of physical colour, may be harmless, but the panoply of words and phrases which use “black” as an indicator of wickedness, danger or similar most certainly are not, no matter what their origin. On the other hand, she has a point when she says that morally superior, blaming attitudes to language may eventually, and counterproductively, annoy people so much that it contributes to the rise of people like Trump. Like I said, it’s nuanced and thought-provoking, whether or not you agree with her.

I had to take these articles in fairly small doses, but I enjoyed reading them because they made me think, and also because I am glad to know what Shriver actually said, rather than hearing just the moral outrage she often provoked. I can recommend Abominations – but only if you don’t mind having your opinions challenged.

(My thanks to HarperCollins for an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not a book you race through because some of these essays take some pondering.

Lionel Shriver seems to have turned into divisive character herself in the past few years and I've even seen comments on book club sites that say they would never read her because of her opinions. She certainly has an opinion on lots of issues. Most of which I wholeheartedly agree with. I too wonder where we go with cancel culture, the need to label "genders", old age/medical advancements amongst other subjects she covers.

What some of these essays do is to give Ms Shriver the right to publish exactly what she wrote for an article rather than what was published by the magazine/newspaper requesting it. They also give her a right to reply to some of the accusations of racism/sexism/and any other isms she's expressed a view on, that have been levelled at her over the years.

There are some lighter moments and her description of what she and her husband did during lockdown is laugh out loud funny.

Whatever you think of Lionel Shriver she is a formidable talent. I love her work and certainly wouldn't stop reading her for any of the opinions she's voiced thus far. This collection of essays is interesting, divisive, funny and thought-provoking. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance copy.

[The Cats’ Mother · Rating 5 out of 5]

We Need To Talk About… Free Speech. Abominations is a collection of 35 essays by author/journalist Lionel Shriver, who is best known for 2003’s Orange Prize-winning We Need To Talk About Kevin, and next best known for winding up progressives at book festivals. She’s also been a regular columnist for The Spectator and has published works of literary fiction on a wide range of topics. I had only read WNTTAK, but was intrigued enough to ignore the deliberately provocative cover image, and found myself admiring her willingness to court controversy by tackling all sorts of inflammatory topics.

An American who moved to the UK in her twenties, first living in Belfast during The Troubles, then relocating to London, where she still lives, Shriver begins by explaining that this represents only a fraction of the non-fiction that has accumulated on her hard drive over the years. The articles have all been previously published, or delivered as an address to some writers’ event, in places as diverse as The Guardian, The New York Times, and Harper’s Magazine. She covers an array of controversial topics, such as immigration, euthanasia, gender politics, and taxation. In the UK she is considered Right-wing: “Still, I don’t apologize for these positions, especially as the preponderance of my literary colleagues lean far to the political left, and the world of letters could sorely use counterbalance.” but observes that in the US her views would be considered Left of Centre.

The pieces are not presented chronologically, but do include autobiographical elements, so we learn about her conservative upbringing in a religious Southern family, the medical issues that have afflicted friends and relatives, and the way aspects of her life have inspired various of her novels - a number of which have now climbed onto my groaning TBR. I was actually surprised by how often I agreed with her, but you don’t have to like her political views to admire her writing and ability to frame an argument. “In fact, the abundance of my natural political bedfellows don’t call themselves libertarian—though “socially liberal economic conservative” is a mouthful. We aren’t bigots, and we’re not evangelical. We are live-and-let-live about sexuality, accept human influence on climate change, and believe in evolution. But we’re also concerned about the national debt, oppressed by an arcane, punitive tax code, and unenthusiastic about widespread dependency on the state.”

The most powerful chapters for me were the one where she describes her brother’s ultimately fatal morbid obesity, and the opening address to the Brisbane Writer’s Festival on the subject of identity politics in fiction that had one young wokester walk out and run to the papers: she argues persuasively that “privileged” white middle class authors cannot create characters of other ethnicities or genders, for fear of being accused of cultural appropriation, but are then demonised for the lack of diversity in their work if they don’t. “Sorry to go all American on you, but our Constitution’s First Amendment protecting freedom of expression doesn’t come with an asterisk: “* Unless you’ve hitherto had it too good.”

The level of snark in her writing is wonderful, if you’re that way inclined. Writing about being castigated by the Fat Rights Movement for creating a character struggling with obesity in her book Big Brother, she observes: “I found this an artistic, political, and even commercial disappointment—because in the United States and the United Kingdom, if only skinny-minnies will buy your book, you’ve evaporated the pool of prospective consumers to a puddle.” The most common theme linking all of these is - you guessed it - freedom of speech. She is clearly thick-skinned enough (and, let’s face it, famous enough) to weather the storms her articles provoke, but is hyper-aware that other less mischievous authors may be deciding that it’s all too hard: “Yet in an era of weaponized sensitivity, participation in public discourse is growing so perilous—so fraught with the danger of being caught out for using the wrong word or failing to toe the line of the latest dogma in relation to disability, sexual orientation, economic class, race, or ethnicity—that many of us are apt to bow out.” and “I have an obstreperous streak a mile wide. I hate being bullied, especially at the keyboard. If even writers like me are starting to wonder if including other ethnicities and races in our fiction is worth the potential blowback, then fiction is in trouble.” being great examples.

It’s a long time since I’ve both highlighted so many quotes, or had to look up so many words. I don’t mind this with an ebook - the wonder of Kindle for iPad means I can instantly learn the meaning of words like picayune & polemical, what an em dash is (= — ) or the meaning of predicate nominative… Don’t think that this makes the book hard work - it really isn’t, and the format makes it easy to dip in and out of as none of the articles are too long. At times the complaints about, for example, making too much money from her one big commercial success, will have you rolling your eyes - first world problems indeed, but she is quick to comment that she isn’t looking for sympathy. Oh and I am 100% with her on the recent fashion for leaving out quote marks for dialogue in fiction - it’s arrogant, annoying and horrible to read. 4.5 rounded up for brilliant honesty. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK for the ARC. I am posting this honest review voluntarily. Abominations is published on September 15th.

[David Wineberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hundred years ago, short articles exploding a subject was a craft, seemingly perfected by Robert Benchley and James Thurber. Benchley covered pretty much everything there was to cover, from the Treaty of Versailles ending World War I, to train travel with children. Thurber said he always feared that what he was writing in the 1940s had already been written by Robert Benchley 20 years earlier – and better. Now comes Lionel Shriver, who covers a lot of the same ground, and while usually not as funny, brings another terrific quality to it – attitude. It makes Abominations, a collection of her non-fiction articles, positively sparkle.

Here’s what I mean, from a speech she gave to fellow fiction writers: “Most writing sucks. Most things that people make of any sort suck. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t make anything. The answer is that modern cliché: to keep trying to fail better. Anything but be obliged to designate my every character an aging five-foot-two smart-ass, and have to set every novel in North Carolina. We fiction writers have to preserve the right to wear many hats [put on hat]—including sombreros.” (She had the gall to put on a sombrero at the end of the speech, and a social media ruckus ensued, mostly by people who were not there and had no access to her script – no one else did.)

These articles usually follow a straightforward formula – find everything you can about the topic and organize it to make it clever and fascinating, even if no one else would normally consider it such. She tackles identity politics, living in Belfast, the death of her brother, healthcare, the ongoing malignancy within fiction (her main pursuit), and friendship’s foibles, among others (There are 37 articles, including an unusually good introduction that sets the tone). She is right up to date, dealing with trolls, pronouns, and the “right” not to be offended. There’s even a two-faced diary of the pandemic.

Naturally, readers will also piece together her own story, like changing her name from Margaret to Lionel, a choice few others would claim, and how to deal with lifelong soulmates who suddenly turn on her. Or the ugly deterioration of her parents. She has managed to distance herself from such things, and put them squarely and fairly in perspective. This has the effect of making the reader want to read it all right away, even if the stories sometimes go on for too long.

She lives in London and Brooklyn, and she lives hard. Bicycling everywhere all over Europe long before it became fashionable, tennis always, wearing what she likes – and that does not include makeup – and partying. Lots of partying, with a lot of politics. She lived in Belfast for a decade when it was not a global stopping point, and was always an outsider there, despite intimate friendships and dedication to the town and life there. (Everywhere she goes, she says, she is an American, except in America.) So no one will mind how personal the stories of poverty, publishing or income tax regimes get. Shriver keeps it all moving at a swift pace.

Shriver is nothing if not opinionated:

On taxes, she believes the rich pay too much, and the poor not enough. Somehow she has come to the conclusion the rich “do not pull in enough to cover an entire nation’s bills,” despite all the evidence to the contrary.

She’s against diversity if it is only for the sake of diversity, pointing to ridiculous policies of replicating the diversity of the UK, hiring exactly two people of one nationality because that would be the same proportion as in the general population. She is far more interested in lifting restrictions on talent.

On healthcare, she thinks people whine too much: “Reject fee-for-service and put physicians on salary. Return to a medical model that treats injury and disease, not dissatisfaction—thus relegating redress of infertility, erectile dysfunction, and gender reassignment, for example, to elective procedures that the disgruntled are obliged to finance on their own dime. On a popular level: resign ourselves that some physical discomfort comes with the territory for us animals; recognize that medicine cannot ameliorate our every ache and pain. Accept that with aging comes deterioration, which mountain-biking baby boomers will have especial difficulty accommodating.”

And despite her bold stances, she is not of much use to feminists: “I do not experience myself first and foremost as a woman. I do not walk around all day contemplating labia and breasts and ovaries, much less determining to get my nails done or to make an appointment for highlights. For me, my very self has no sex.” At the same time, she would not restrict pornography, or abortion.

Unbelievably, at least to me, she identifies best with Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, the obstreperous blocker of legislation and nominations, a man whose neighbors can’t stand him, and who appointed himself an opthalmologist by petition, not certification, taking advantage of an age-old loophole in state law. She says she is forced to vote Democratic because Republican platforms verge on the lunatic. She is totally offended by Donald Trump.

It helps that her politics are all over the place, because they add to the fun. She does her best to reason things out for the reader. She is firmly in the Brexit camp (she calls the Northern Ireland border a “fake predicament”), and favors the unionist camp in Northern Ireland, leaving the island split.

Possibly the best examples are in her main line of work, novels. She has written nine, and one, We Need to Talk About Kevin, was made into a film. Her writing is attacked for cultural appropriation, meaning she has no right to even try to write for other races or nationalities or even the opposite sex. Which rather limits potential story lines, she says. Fiction writers are similarly criticized for adjusting language to reflect a character’s background, race or education. Anything at all that can identify a character as different from the writer is suspected cultural appropriation in this new cancel culture. Asked how she thought she could write well from a male perspective, she replied: “… the crucial constituents of our characters have little to do with sex, unless we insist on labeling clumps of qualities—forcefulness, violence, inability to cry; tenderness, consideration, inability to drive—as exclusively male and female, which they are not.” She says they are her characters. She invented them, and she can have them say or do whatever she wants.

Shriver is concise, direct and clear. Refreshingly so throughout the book.

However.

She’s not always thorough or reliable. In a story all about monuments, she focuses on the Civil War statues of Richmond Virginia, where she was born. She says they’re really just for the tourists and that locals don’t even know who the statues represent. This is not true, as locals tried long and hard to protect their secessionist heroes from removal. And one glaring fact is missing from her story. She does not notice their illegality. Putting up a statue to Robert E. Lee or Jefferson Davis is treason, as is flying the rebel flag. In war, the first thing the winning side always does is tear down the traitors’ flag, and never lets it appear again. Statues to traitors is a uniquely bizarre American malaise. Even in her other home, England, where they often celebrate dismal failures in statues, they draw the line at treason. None of this occurred to Shriver in her otherwise expansive article.

Other times, she’s out of her depth and flat out wrong. In an article on inflation, Shriver attacks Modern Monetary Theory this way: “According to ‘magic money tree’ thinking, a.k.a. modern monetary theory, a government that controls its own currency can print money to cover its expenses without limit.”

But MMT does not say that, largely nullifying everything that comes after. Unless the reader doesn’t know MMT (which is likely), in which case her whole argument is brilliant.

In attacking progressives, she says “’Progress’ merely means go forward, and you can go forward into a pit.” But that’s not true. Progress implies improvement over past failures. Otherwise it is just dumb movement, not actual progress. But conservatives don’t want to hear such nonsense.

Several pieces, unfortunately, deal with English language editing. I say unfortunately because it is a rite of passage, a seemingly safe topic every writer/editor feels empowered to publish. Benchley and especially Thurber fulfilled their weekly deadlines far too often just picking a letter of the alphabet and having at it. These here are mostly about things like writers abjuring quotation marks, which is clearly not an improvement on anything. And catchphrases and fashions in word choice. Plus, there’s the usual, tedious mourning for the changing meaning of words. At least she doesn’t trace word origins back to the ancient Greek, which is just too tiresome, but the fact she somehow ignores is that languages are living things. They constantly change, as does everything. The meaning of a word can change overnight, and there’s nothing neither she nor anyone else can or even should try to do about it. Shriver is not bringing English back to the apparently glorious 1980s any more than EB White brought it back to the more correct 1900s.

She is also less than pleased with jargon, the memes of every era. She lists them and belittles them. To no real effect. Bitterness and resentment are simply a waste of time. Go with the flow or be left behind.

These are not quibbles; they are features. They all contribute to the complex being Lionel Shriver presents in her nonfiction writing. It is very different from the punditry of this era, and she is the first to recognize it. And still not change a word. After all, she has called it Abominations for a reason. Thank you, Lionel Shriver.

David Wineberg

(Abominations, Lionel Shriver, August 2022)

If you liked this review, I invite you to read more in my book The Straight Dope. It’s an essay collection based on my first thousand reviews and what I learned. Right now it’s FREE for Prime members, otherwise — cheap! Reputed to be fascinating and a superfast read. And you already know it is well-written. https://www.amazon.com/Straight-Dope-...

[EmG ReadsDaily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thought-provoking collection of personal and political essays from social satirist, novelist and cultural observer Lionel Shriver.

[Leo Robertson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d read a lot of these before and enjoyed them. Shriver is at her best when self-effacing and not taking life too seriously. It works as a nice counterbalance to her novels which, as she admits here, tend towards catastrophe.

But she’s at her absolute worst when regurgitating really weak conservative talking points. She might decry millennial/gen z love of outrage, but she is instead addicted to its opposing drug: irreverence, or controversy for its own sake, maybe. Not all unpopular opinions need defenders, and many of these can have huge holes poked in them with the slightest bit of thought. I’m not even gonna waste my time doing it here in this review, so quickly did my eyes glaze over when opening an essay on immigration, statue preservation, Brexit or diversity initiatives.

I really hope this doesn’t happen to me in my sixties. And that this book will remind me to ignore that impulse that says “I just want to have gone on record saying it!” If ever that visceral feeling of confusion at young people gets too strong 🤣

[emily · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've shelved a 'DNF' book, but here is one. Except for We Need to Talk About Kevin, I find it difficult to enjoy any of her other books. It's not a badly written book at all, but I am just not the right reader for it. Regardless, I'm thankful for the review copy. I hope someone else finds more joy in reading this than I did.

[Sheridan Dillan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many essays in this book demonstrate that one doesn’t have to agree to appreciate an intelligent argument. Bottom line—agree or disagree, but use your brain! Man does Lionel Shriver have a helluva way with words. I hope we continue to live in a world where she is free to share those words.

[Sally · Rating 5 out of 5]

No-one writes like Lionel Shriver. I really enjoyed these selections from a long career of plain speaking and a willingness to call a spade a spade. I may not agree with everything she says, but I always like the way she says it!

[Jonathan Pool · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve previously read Double Fault and The Mandibles by Lionel Shriver and have enjoyed them both. Shriver’s selection of essays and opinion pieces take her in an entirely different direction, and one I would not have guessed from her novels. Shriver points out that the controversies surrounding her articles do have a degree of pure self interest. Better and more lucrative to generate opinion, even if it is hostile, than to fade away into obscurity.

Shriver introduces the collection with the front cover words: “Selected essays from a career of courting self-destruction.” . I don’t believe for a moment that Shriver beliefs that this is self-inflicted, and she has a hard skinned approach to all the brickbats thrown her way.
The collection covers more of a variety of topics and thoughts than you would think. Its hard not to pre-suppose that there will be a “right-wing” and “anti-woke” undercurrent in the essays, because that’s what she’s now most known for. (along with We Need To Talk About Kevin)

Shriver lays down her stance as follows:

She is known in the non fiction sphere for views contrary to typical left leaning literary colleagues
-support Brexit
-dislike affirmative action
-oppose disease lockdowns
-abhor soaring national debt
-defend freedom of speech (even unpleasant stuff)
-resist uncontrolled mass immigration

Written down as a list like this, the immediate response (for me) is to be extremely wary of what’s coming. In actuality the essays cover a more eclectic (and interesting) range of topics. Obesity; Cancer; Northern Ireland (a complicated subject in which Shriver’s views have a depth of credibility after she spend more than a decade living in Belfast as a working journalist); exercise and fitness; taxation; and (bizarrely) the use of punctuation, specifically inverted commas, in novels.
Maybe the list of topics covered is such that serious and divisive subject matter needs to be treated with due seriousness. I say that because the charge I would level against Lionel Shriver is that there is a marked absence of any humour. You need to do a bit more than stick a Sombrero on your head at a public event. There is also a notable lack of acknowledgement of alternate views to those that she espouses in the essays. I guess she would say that this is responding in kind to the hostility she has experienced for voicing opinions within her literary world sphere that have received little understanding from her opponents.

My own views of the subject matter covered is that it’s best not to air them on a public forum.
If you have extreme (or passionate, strongly held) views on any end of an opinion spectrum it’s important to be aware that less cerebral, less open-minded supporters of your views can seize on them and turn up the heat, often for not good motives or outcomes. The discussions that take place in literary salons can become rather different when taken to the streets.

I now need to read a selection of essays that start from the opposite perspective on the issues in question, and then I can ensure that I continue to be properly informed for a balanced world view that both welcomes change and in a contradictory way, respects tradition.

[Lori L (She Treads Softly) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Abominations: Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver is a very highly recommended collection of thirty-five opinion pieces.

Shriver is known for her sharp intellect, well-supported opinions, and perfectly chosen vocabulary. This is a superb collection covering more than two decades of some of her nonfiction selected from the Spectator, Guardian, New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, Wall Street Journal, as well as speeches, reviews, and unpublished pieces. Whether you agree with her on everything or nothing, Shriver clearly and succinctly makes her case and doesn't particularly care what others think about her opinion.

She is citizen of the U.S.A. who has lived in the U.K. for 30 years (12 years in Belfast), and shares opinions and thoughts on culture and politics concerning both countries. She does not shy away from opinions and thoughts that will be controversial. I appreciate this enormously. She clearly indicates which essays resulted in people trying to cancel her, not that she cares. Some of the pieces are lighter in tone than others, providing a nice mix.

As a proponent of free speech, she writes about what she thinks and would extend the same right to you. Topics covered include, in part: Brexit, religion, friends, fitness, taxes, cancel culture, wokeness, gender politics, semantics, trends in literature, the lockdown, tennis, cycling, nationalism, diversity, feelings, and more. Abominations is going to thrill fans of her fiction when she provides some insight into some of her novels, Big Brother being one example. I'm an ardent fan of her fiction and as I read these pieces I couldn't help but think, "Good for her." It is always refreshing to read someone expressing their firmly held personal beliefs in a logical, well-written manner and not care if any mob comes after them for it.
Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of HarperCollins.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/0...

[Stetson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, I had little awareness of Lionel Shriver prior to her appearance on Andrew Sullivan's Dishcast podcast. (I'm often deeply familiar with the meager population of dissidents among artists and intellectuals). I had even seen the film adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was provocative (due to the maternal ambivalence rather than the mass murder at a school) but also blinkered by a deep Freudianism. Nonetheless, I had never come across her novels or commentary. So after her interview with Sullivan, I resolved to read some of her work. I found this collection of essays and dove in.

This collection is backward looking despite being comprised of mostly recent essays. It is also more personal and self-reflective than I anticipated. Her essays on her brother is moving and moves beyond the rhetorical binary of "fat acceptance" versus "fat shaming" toward a balanced recognition of human frailty and dignity. Death is a persistent theme that runs through the collection too.

In the more political essays, she is frank about her ideology (libertarianism) and catalogs a series of misunderstandings - her own but also others' - and frustrations - tribalism and anti-intellectualism in political discourse, esotericism in literary fiction, etc.

Shriver's voice is still distinctly American despite being a long-time expat in the UK; I'd characterize her as a much less raucous version of Camille Paglia who approaches provocation with more intentionality and reservations. Shriver actually has a conservative streak, which is absent from Paglia.

Unfortunately, I don't know if this is a good characterization of her fiction, which seems interested in pushing boundaries, because I haven't read it, though Shriver does comment on most of her novels in this collection, including Big Brother, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Should We Stay or Should We Go, The Mandibles, and So Much for All That.

[Lynnette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book from Goodreads and I must say I usually read fiction, but really enjoyed the essays. I was happy to see that Lionel’s mother hails from Iowa , as I do.
The essays had thought provoking ideas. II’m retired from healthcare and thoroughly agree with Lionel’s assessment of our healthcare system. Common sense has mostly gone out the window it seems in the world.

[C.M. Arnold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amen.

If you are a writer and you don't say amen while reading the pieces about writing/modern day traditional mainstream publishing....I don't know what to say to you. Other than maybe you don't love it like we do. Because witnessing the death of something you love and respect, and to NOT be in mourning? You must be misguided on your true feelings.

And I have a lot of feelings on some of the subjects in this book that would result in a long drawn out review that would basically just be me echoing what Lionel has said. So read it.

(Side note: I finished this book a while ago and forgot to post the review. Today a friend told me about some crazy stuff going down on BookTock. Full disclosure: I know nothing about Booktock, I've only been briefed on certain going-ons. But the takeaway was that a plethora of book influencers are basically like "Separating art from artist? Wtf is that!?!?" In having the conversation....I was reminded to publish this review.)

If you are a writer who wants to write fiction of sustenance---fiction that has not been sterilized (I'm talking in both the neutered and sanitized sense), fiction that knows no bounds as opposed to suffering from an impotence impediment, fiction that tells a story instead meandering through safley meaningless pretensions, fiction that is more interested with having a plot than checking a bunch of boxes that behave like a constantly moving goalpost, fiction that is FEARLESS----read this book. At the very least, you can relate. 

If you are a reader. If you are a book reviewer. Please read this book.

And please try to understand.

I shouldn't have to say this, but I will. I have never voted Republican a day in my life and do not foresee a day that I ever will. I know The Right wants to ban books. Truely, I know this on a livelihood level. Writing is not my livelihood. I know most of the time they want books banned for hateful and prejudiced reasons. I know that I may fantasize about throwing Bill O'Reily books into a sea of fire, but I would never actually want to make it my life's mission to prevent him or any other person I despise from publishing. I'm just not going to buy, support, or promote what they publish. I say all that to say this: The Left is just as guilty, if not more guilty, of censorship. The Left is responsible for the death of creativity. Yes, I believe that.

Please don't misconstrue me for agreeing with her. Please don't misconstrue her for saying what she's saying. I've said before both nuance and flippancy are dead. And it would seem that they died so mass misconstruing could thrive. 

Go in with the mind to at least attempt to absorb what she is saying free of preconceived notions. When your fur goes to bristle, take a pause before you pounce. I'm not saying divorce yourself from your sensibilities and, in this case, sensitivities, but take a break from them. File for separation from these PC culture, cancel culture, trigger warning happy, new age writing rules if only for the length of time it takes you to read this book. 

And ask yourself this. Should art have parameters? 

Okay....so every piece isn't about writing or being a writer. Some weren't of that much interest to me, but others I found cute. Her take on exercise and the infatuation with exercise/health/wellness "culture" was pretty spot on. This isn't about people who are exercising to get in better shape/health, to be clear. This is about already fit people for whom exercise is their sole identity. The "maintenance" that goes above and beyond. Like Shriver said, what for?  One would think you're staying healthy to be able to continue doing x y z. But when your life consists of nothing but health and fitness, and you're already healthy and fit...you're staying extra alive to do...what? I know a 70 something woman who is obsessed with what she eats and walking MILES every day regardless of the elements or if she's ill. She is retired. Has no children. And to my knowledge, no big dream she is still trying to achieve. What are you starving yourself for? What are you risking fainting or falling down out in some park at five in the morning without a life alert (because why would an "athlete" need a life alert???--her logic and reasoning, not mine) and sustaining a life altering hip injury? To me it boils down to: I need a thing so this will be my thing even though deep down inside past carefully curated denial I hate this thing. Yes, I have a hard time believing very many people genuinely enjoy hearing the alarm go off knowing a workout in the freezing/sweltering elements awaits them followed by avocado toast and egg whites.

Wee bit judgy? Yes. But we're in a judgy world no matter where you stand. There were some parts on British customs and some other stuff that isn't memorable in my post covid brain with the book no longer right in front of me. But as a writer, I appreciated this book. And I agree. And I'm not afraid to say I agree. I do not agree with every single thing she has ever said. I will not agree with every single thing she will come to say. That's life. That's nuance. That's context. That's nobody is perfect, everybody is human, and you shouldn't hang all your hopes and dreams of morality sans missteps on one human. Writers F up. Guess what? You do too, Miss Book Review. Or Mister.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Feisty articles from the pen of the We Need To Talk About Kevin author. Among the diverse topics on display are her love of tennis, separating the art from the artist, transgenderism, affirmative action, cultural appropriation, and The Great Replacement.

“Most people of any race or religion do not like vast numbers of people entering their territory from elsewhere and making themselves permanently at home. This is not some sick, especially western meanness. This is what human beings are like all over the world. The blithe welcoming of their own dwindling and loss of dominion now demanded of western majorities is fundamentally inhuman.

After all, try reversing the paradigm. If white westerners were immigrating by the tens of millions to developing nations — if Liverpudlians were pouring into Lagos — the left would decry the mass migration as neocolonialism. Such white flight would be denounced as invasion — as it would be. Yet for today’s left, non-white cultures must be protected, preserved and promoted, while evil European cultures deserve to be subsumed. That version of events is neither fair nor saleable.”

[Amaia ✡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Funny, smart, defiant, assertive, using arguments instead of escalating conflicts - it was a pleasure to read this book. It tackles a wide range of subjects, from politics, woke, religion, gender ideology to Covid, tax, Brexit, or even themes less fashionable nowadays: tennis, ikea, speech quotation marks, punctuation, semantics. I do agree with her on almost everything, but fiercely disagree on 5% of these topics. But even those articles are agreeable to read, the argument is built and not thrown in your face. It incites to dialogue instead of visceral reactions.
Easily 5 🌟

[P K · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was relieved when I saw that Lionel Shriver was finally publishing a collection of essays. Her last several novels have been 90% topical belligerence 10% plot, and I could sense an essay collection coming.

I can't say I agreed with all of these essays, or found Shriver to be a well balanced or compassionate person, but they certainly made me think. Among the most problematic aspects of her rhetoric are:

1. She treats everyone as though they're on even ground, with the same levels of opportunity and disadvantage as everyone else. This is self-evidently not true, and some groups have a painful history that needs to be acknowledged in certain contexts.

2. Her tone is quite inflammatory. She often uses stupid voices to imitate those who disagree with her, she makes casually backhanded statements like "most people are crazy, stupid or both" that are just disrespectful and do not further interesting discourse. They're petulant.

3. She often ignores, not sure if it's willful, obvious counterpoints to her views. Like in her essay on canceling artists, she asks, if you don't like something bad about an artist, why erase everything good they've done? Like why stop buying cookbooks of a known anti-Semite etc. when you're just trying to make a cake. She totally ignores that patronizing that person is directly enabling their power via money and a platform.

But this misses her larger point, which I think is the biggest merit in the book, and what really had an effect on me. Hearing an opposing point of view does no real harm, and is in fact completely necessary to help you define your intellectual and moral boundaries. It might even help you change your mind. I now live in a city in which in some ways, I feel very safe and supported. Most oddball views I have are listened to, the city is strongly feminist, unconventional ways of living are embraced, and there's an air that cultural change is constantly afoot. In other ways, I find it intellectually stifling, as I feel that many people I meet here have, as Shriver puts it, "bought into a prefix menu of ideas" and quite extreme ones at that. The emphasis in the last few years of protecting everyone from anything potentially "triggering", which is a completely subjective word, takes the burden of work off the individual being resilient, and onto every single action and word others utter. That seems really ass-backwards to me and has resulted in a level of cultural censorship that I never would have believed would be so unquestioningly embraced by American liberals. I really liked her point about who dictates these cultural norms as well.

"Rather than scramble to keep up with all the new rules about what words a writer can and can't use, we would do better to ask who issues these rules and on what authority."

I actually agreed with her two most controversial essays in this collection. One was the one about cultural appropriation. Shriver says "Cultural appropriation is pretty much the goal of fiction, to write from a variety of perspectives. Are we supposed to stick only to stories that pertain to the toys that fell in our play pen?" I certainly wouldn't read as much fiction if fiction had to be both firmly within the writer's limited ken and had to also be morally upstanding, which is a cultural pressure that is growing with alarming force.

I also agreed with her essay on gender. I do think we should spend a lot more time talking about why people are finding the need to surgically alter their bodies to match those of a different sex, and if the rigidity of our societal gender norms has a role to play in this. However, I don't bring this up in large groups, because once I begin, I'm sure someone will label the idea "transphobic" before really considering the point.

In short, I think that instead of canceling people and creating a cultural environment where well meaning people hesitate to voice opinions that haven't been explicitly sanctioned by our group's ideology, we should spend our energies on developing good communication practices so we can learn to integrate with people who have different viewpoints about some topics from our own. We should focus on building resilient self-worth so we don't get our hackles up at microaggressions, and can just explain why that hurt our feelings.

I didn't agree with everything Shriver said, and certainly didn't agree with the way she said most of it. But this book was invigorating, made me think, and stimulated me. It made me fantasize about a world where everyone was able to say how they felt, and everyone else could listen, even if they don't agree, and people were smart and resilient enough not to fall to pieces about tiny or unintentional slights.

[Tracey Allen at Carpe Librum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lionel Shriver is a somewhat controversial author here in Australia, although I found myself agreeing with most of her opinions in Abominations - Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction by Lionel Shriver.

Some readers might remember when Shriver made Australian headlines after giving the keynote speech at the 2016 Brisbane Writer's Festival. Her speech was about cultural appropriation and in Abominations we hear the speech in full, together with the subsequent fall out, attempt at cancellation and finally her response to it all.

For the record, I agree with her. Political correctness and the woke brigade have definitely gone too far if wearing a sombrero at a party is considered cultural appropriation and therefore offensive. If authors can only write from their own lived experience in order to avoid being accused of cultural appropriation, then their work will be dull and limited. I want authors to have the creative freedom to write about a priest living in the time of the black plague or a courtier dancing in the court of Elizabeth I and this automatically extends to creating characters with different nationalities and ethnicities; ages; sexual preferences and identities; socioeconomic backgrounds; levels of education; backgrounds and personalities than themselves.

Shriver is open about the many attempts that have been made to cancel her and while she admirably shrugs them off, she does highlight the impact a 'successful' cancellation has on authors, publishers, actors and other creatives and the often devastating and unintended consequences that follow. Shriver gives examples of well known celebrity cancellations and I agreed with most of her opinions on the topic.

Abominations contains more than 40 essays of varying length and covers a broad range of topics, including: tennis, politics (Brexit and the troubles), IKEA furniture, economics (wages and taxes), health care, ageing parents and the pro-death movement. I found her essay on the nature of friendship break-ups particularly interesting.

In her instantly relatable essay entitled Quote Unquote published in the The Wall Street Journal in 2008, Shriver breaks down her pet peeve of quoteless dialogue:

"While the use of quotes to distinguish speech is still standard in English language fiction, undemarcated dialogue has steadily achieved the status of an established style. In fact, this is one of those stealthy trends that no-one confronts directly." Chapter 33

Shriver explains that it's harder to read fiction without punctuation marks for dialogue and making the reader work harder isn't in the author's best interests. She goes on to address each of the arguments in favour of undemarcated dialogue - love that phrase! - including improved aesthetics on the page and a perceived edginess. Shriver asks editors, agents, critics and established authors for their opinion and discovered the majority found dialogue without speech marks annoying. I was nodding the entire time and occasionally thinking to myself, YES!

Listening to the author read her essays added to the overall experience and I'm giving Abominations by Lionel Shriver an extra star just for the sheer quality of the writing, vocabulary and turn of phrase. Whether you agree with her views or not, there's no arguing she's one hell of a writer!

[Chaya · Rating 4 out of 5]

Known until recently primarily as a fiction writer, Shriver has of late entered the cultural fray, with a series of essays speaking to the current zeitgeist which includes wokeism and its evils, self-contradictions, illogic, racism, and other various bugbears. In this volume, Shriver has assembled a selection of her best, touching on topics ranging from the personal (the death of one of her friendships, her late brother's obesity problems, her parents' religion), the political (identity politics, gender ideology, diversity hires), and including some laugh-out-loud humor ("Lionel Shriver is Grateful for Pandemic Quarantine (No She Isn't)"

Shriver has a robust and energetic voice, and a zesty style. She holds no punches here, calling them as she sees them. She doesn't easily fit into a political box, espousing liberal, libertarian, and sometimes even conservative positions on a range of topics, and that makes for very interesting reading, as it's pretty boring reading someone you know you're going to agree with on every topic. She can articulate her positions with clarity and insight, often presenting her arguments with basic questions that distill down the issue at hand to its very core kernel of truth. I appreciated the introductions to several of the essays, which gave some necessary historical and social context to the writings.

[Jenni Ogden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lionel Shriver is one of my favourite novelists, but I have read very few of her articles, probably because I don't live in the UK where most of them are published. I had, of course been aware of her controversial comments on the ''Other voices' debate, and while I don't agree with all her opinions on this or other issues, I do agree with many of her arguments (especially more generally on the absurdities of being overly 'politically correct' and 'woke' and cisgendered!!) And on the 'other voices' issue as a novelist, oh how true it is: if writers can't write in the voice of anyone other than their own 'identity' then we are set to lose a lot of great writers and ideas. The best writers do not want to stick to a world where everyone is just like them. But whether one agrees or not with Shriver's opinions an arguments, her provocative, intelligent, amusing (laugh out loud in places), sarcastic and quite superb writing is a total pleasure to read. This is not a book to read to lull one to sleep; read it in bed and expect to turn the light out at 3am if you're strong enough to resist reading until daybreak! Thank you to tNetGalley, the publisher and indeed to Lionel Shriver for the ARC. She is a brave woman and good on the publisher for supporting this book.

[Superstar2me · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was dubious when this book was recommended to me by a friend who claims Shriver among his heroes. I didn’t agree with every essay here, but was fascinated by Shriver’s fearless tendency to wade into any and every issue. I may not be a convert to her take on Covid, for example. But as a writer her defence of freedom of expression is articulate and rife with excellent examples. I was quite riveted to almost every essay, and only turned away as she attempted to unravel the political landscape of Northern Ireland, where she lived in the past. As an American in the UK she has a unique perspective on many things international, but the best essays are on why she despises’wokeness’ and all that she sees coming with it, particularly as it limits authors. An eye opening read by an excellent and thoughtful and very entertaining writer.

[Sara Coley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was apprehensive to read this, less I discover Lionel Shriver’s non-fiction was not in alignment with who I imagined her to be. Pleasantly surprised, I was once a regular admirer now turned super fan. Bravo!

[Ka Vee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*
Veel essays die ècht goed zijn, je scherp houden. Ook heel wat politieke essays, en essays over de Ierland-kwestie en Brexit, waar ik Shriver verloor.

[Brendan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abominations is a hard book to review because it's not really a book: it's a collection of essays that have little to do with each other. The topics include: COVID lockdowns, aging and mortality, tennis, bike lanes, grammar, cultural appropriation, gender identity and others.

The one consistent is that Shriver brings a thoughtful perspective to every issue and subject about which she writes. Many issues are controversial, but her "takes" are not rhetorical or inflammatory (though she reports that outrage followed many speeches she gave and essays she wrote). I took deep insights from several of these essays.

Still, the wide variety of topics addressed meant that not all of them resonated with me. There was an essay on the politics of Northern Ireland (Shriver is basically a dual-resident of the United States and the United Kingdom); a subject about which I know little. Many chapters referred to Shriver's novels (none of which I have read) or related to the process of novel writing. And there is no attempt to synthesize or harmonize the essays with each other. Stories of some events are repeated in multiple essays such as controversies in which Shriver was involved and deaths of close friends and relatives that inspired her books and essays. Each essay is independent of the others, so the book is one voice on different topics rather than broad themes and theses.

[Jarkko Tontti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erinomaista esseistiikkaa! Aiheita kaikilta elämän aloilta mitä kiinnostavimmista kulmista. Ja toisin kuin moni cancelointia pelkäävä englanninkielisen maailman kirjailija, Shriver uskaltaa osoittaa myös woke-ideologian ongelmat ilmaisunvapaudelle ja kultuurille yleensä.