A Better Life - by Lionel Shriver (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

In a provocative novel addressing contemporary immigration by the sharply observant Lionel Shriver, a New York family takes in a Honduran migrant--who may or may not be the innocent paragon she claims to be.

Gloria Bonaventura, a divorced mother of three living with her 26-year-old son Nico in a sprawling house in Brooklyn, decides to participate in a new city program that would pay her to take in a migrant as a boarder. Liberal to the extreme, Gloria is thrilled when sweet, kind, helpful Martine arrives. But Nico is skeptical. A classic live-at-home Gen Zer with no interest in adulthood, Nico resents any interruption of his "hovercraft repose."

As the months go by, Martine endears herself to both Nico's sisters, while finding her way into Gloria's heart and even, briefly, Nico's. But as Martine's disturbingly dodgy compatriots begin to show up, Nico conceives a dark twin hostile to both his mother's altruism and the "migrant crisis" in general--and turns out to be anything but a reliable narrator himself.

Based loosely on a program New York City Mayor Eric Adams floated but did not initiate, A Better Life is Lionel Shriver at her best: smart, funny, and sensitive to the moral nuances of perhaps the most divisive issue of our times.

Review Quotes

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

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

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

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

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