When I write, I laugh a lot. . .

Lionel Shriver with, left, Associate Director of Creative Writing, Mary Morrissy, and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Dr Alan Gibbs.  Photograph: Maeve Bancroft

Just like her writing process, Lionel Shriver’s reading at UCC was peppered with humour despite dealing with the serious political issues of the day, writes Uversity student in creative practice, Luisa Geisler.  

It was an exercise in “complete bullshit”: that’s how Lionel Shriver described the first excerpt she read at the final event in the School of English reading series. The “bullshit” referred to a fictional presidential address that features in her latest novel about a catastrophic economic crisis that overtakes the US, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047.

Shriver, a novelist and journalist, is the author of 13 novels, including the National Book Award finalist So Much for That and the Orange Prize for Fiction winner and international bestseller, We Need to Talk about Kevin.

Released in 2016, The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047, portrays a dystopian future in which the dollar goes into freefall and the novel investigates the effects of a fictionalised globalised economic crisis on a family and its money. Before reading the fictional presidential address to the nation, Shriver said she had a ball writing it, and recommended it as a good creative writing assignment. “When I write, I laugh a lot,” she explained

The after-reading discussion was co-chaired by Mary Morrissy, Associate Director of Creative Writing,  and Dr Alan Gibbs, lecturer in American literature, whose research interests cover contemporary American literature and trauma narratives. Shriver had fun with the idea of trauma narrative. “I think that’s all I write, it’s trauma fiction,” she joked.

Dr Gibbs quoted Philip Roth pointing out “that actuality is continually outdoing our [fiction writers’] talents”. Some of the events in the futuristic The Mandibles overlap with recent events in the US. In the novel, the US cannot repay its national debt, and Mexico has built a wall on the border to prevent Americans trying to flee there with their savings. The wall-building echo was clear.  Shriver explained, however, that she started writing the book before Trump began his campaign for president. “So he got the idea from me!”

Shriver’s humour shone through even when discussing difficult themes and explaining part of the research for her novel – economics – which she talked passionately about. She emphasized the importance of polemical writing. “I’m frustrated with the fact that a lot of writers these days are avoiding certain subjects because they’re too scary, too controversial,” she said. “And when you start censoring yourself, that’s the beginning of the end of free speech.”

This statement reflected her approach to the Q&A from the audience, in which she answered questions without hesitation. Two topics seemed to dominate. The first was We Need to Talk about Kevin, Shriver’s novel whose impact persists even though it was released in 2003. Asked about the film adaptation, she said she liked it overall. While complimenting the casting, she felt, however, that “John C. Riley just wasn’t attractive enough for Tilda Swinton”.

The second recurring topic was US President Trump. “I do think he’s a problem for fiction writers,” Shriver said, “he’s so outlandish that I can’t imagine coming up with any fictional character to fill that role who wasn’t comparatively tame.”

Shriver was adamantly against giving in to hysteria as a response to Trump’s power. “He is incompetent, he is stupid and he doesn’t understand how government works. And that means he’s not gonna be good at making it do things.” She tried to end on an optimistic note: “This is a weird thing and a bad thing, but it’s not the end of the world. Maybe we should end on that thought.”

And even if we as an audience didn’t want to be haunted by the thoughts from that discussion, we were.

The reading took place at the Creative Zone, Boole Library, on March 14.