Lionel Shriver's Most Problematic Novel Yet

About this episode

Lionel Shriver discusses her controversial novel A Better Life, exploring themes of immigration and parenting choices with host Meghan Daum.

Bestselling novelist and commentator Lionel Shriver returns to the podcast to dicuss what might be her most controversial book yet. A Better Life takes on immigration through the story of a progressive Brooklyn woman who opens her home to a migrant. In this interview, she and Meghan discuss the book's themes and central characters, including the deliciously complicated Nico, a basement-dwelling fan of manospheric podcasts, and the role of the family's sprawling, Queen Anne-style house, which is almost a character in itself. They also talk about demography, population decline, and the cultural shift from seeing children as the default to seeing them as an elective. Lionel was a contributor to Meghan's 2015 book Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers On the Decision Not To Have Kids, and they revisit their respective choices in that regard, what people really mean when they talk about happiness and fulfillment, and why sacrifice may be more central to a meaningful life than our culture likes to admit. Guest Bio: A prolific journalist with a fortnightly column in Britain's The Spectator, Lionel Shriver has written widely for the New York Times, the London Times, the…

People in this episode

Host: Meghan Daum

Guest: Lionel Shriver

Topics covered

• immigration
• literature
• demography
• parenting choices
• cultural shifts

Keywords

• Lionel Shriver
• A Better Life
• immigration
• parenting
• cultural shift
• demography
• literature

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: A Better Life, Selfish, Shallow and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen Writers On the Decision Not To Have Kids

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