So Much for That - by Lionel Shriver (Paperback)

About the Book

From the author of "The Post-Birthday World" comes this deeply resonant novel that looks at America's health care system, and poses the disturbing moral question that affects more people every day: How much is one life worth?

From the Back Cover

Shep Knacker has long saved for "the Afterlife," an idyllic retreat in the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Exasperated that his wife, Glynis, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the right time to go, Shep finally announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her. Yet Glynis has some news of her own: she's deathly ill. Shep numbly puts his dream aside, while his nest egg is steadily devastated by staggering bills that their health insurance only partially covers. Astonishingly, illness not only strains their marriage but saves it.

From acclaimed New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver comes a searing, ruthlessly honest novel. Brimming with unexpected tenderness and dry humor, it presses the question: How much is one life worth?

Review Quotes

"A delicious novel. . . . So Much for That, Lionel Shriver's improbably feel-good black comedy, is the rare book that can make suicide, near-bankruptcy and terminal cancer so engaging you can't wait to turn the page. . . . Provocative, entertaining-and so very timely." - Jocelyn McClurg, USA Today
"[A] shrewd, ambitious novel. . . . Shriver's prose is frank and often beautiful . . . nuanced and persuasive." - The New Yorker
"With her new novel, So Much for That, Lionel Shriver strengthens her already credible claim to the title of best living American writer. . . . Her work offers an appealing combination of qualities that seldom come together in a single writer. She couples the hardheaded social observation of Edith Wharton or George Eliot with a relentless psychological and artistic boldness that belongs more to the tradition of Melville or Dostoevsky. Exerting these different skills with immense confidence and penetration, Shriver is one of our great American originals." - Kevin Frazier, The Millions
"[Shriver] certainly has her finger on national nerves." - Birmingham Post
"A visceral and deeply affecting story, a story about how illness affects people's relationships, and how their efforts to grapple with mortality reshape the arcs of their lives. . . . [Shriver's] understanding of her people is so intimate, so unsentimental . . . it lofts these characters permanently into the reader's imagination." - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"Harrowing yet riveting.... Wisely, Shriver doesn't make her characters all saints.... [They] come alive with visceral abandon.... Clever, convincing...stubbornly real-and chillingly personal." - Julia Keller, Chicago Tribune
"Artists like Lionel Shriver have the ability to illuminate mere events and bring them to life. Her books get under your skin because they're so very grounded in the real world. . . . Art, like life, doesn't always cut us the breaks we desire. If we're lucky-and in the capable hands of a writer like Shriver-we emerge all the wiser for it. And don't let the weighty subject matter scare you off: the spot-on, often hilarious characterizations kept me reading hungrily until the very end." - Shannon Rhoades, NPR's "Morning Edition"
"The rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, [Shriver] makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country.... It's a bitter pill, indeed, but take it if you can." - Ron Charles, Washington Post
"Shriver writes in precise, dynamic prose.... If anyone's going to perk up the often-limp niceness of the women's novel it's Shriver, who has no use for earth mothers or noble victims.... The climax offers more fun, vengeful satisfaction and pure tenderness than any treatise on the future of healthcare." - Ella Taylor, Los Angeles Times
"Cauterizingly funny." - Vogue
"Neither stingy with subplots nor shy about taking on timely, complex issues, [Shriver] tosses plenty of both into the pot with real daring and brio." - Leah Hager Cohen, New York Times Book Review
"A visceral and deeply affecting story, a story about how illness affects people's relationships, and how their efforts to grapple with mortality reshape the arcs of their lives.... [Shriver's] understanding of her people is so intimate, so unsentimental...it lofts these characters permanently into the reader's imagination." - Michiko Kakutani, New York Times
"[An] immaculate, hilarious, and authentically dark new novel. . . . A cast of characters as absurd and entertaining as they are real." - Cathi Hanauer, Elle
"Brave, bold. . . . A page turner. . . . Brilliantly funny and a superb plotter, Shriver is a master of the misanthrope. . . . [A] viciously smart writer." - Mary Pols, Time
"As fascinating as it is disturbing." - Cleveland Plain Dealer