The Mandibles LP - Large Print by Lionel Shriver (Paperback)

About the Book

It is 2029. United States is engaged in a bloodless world war that will wipe out the savings of millions of American families. Overnight, on the international currency exchange, the "almighty dollar" plummets in value. The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies. Their inheritance turned to ash, each family member must contend with disappointment as the effects of the downturn start to hit. Perhaps only Florence's oddball teenage son Willing, an economics autodidact, can save this formerly august American family from the streets.

Book Synopsis

With dry wit and psychological acuity, this near-future novel explores the aftershocks of an economically devastating U.S. sovereign debt default on four generations of a once-prosperous American family. Down-to-earth and perfectly realistic in scale, this is not an over-the-top Blade Runner tale. It is not science fiction.

In 2029, the United States is engaged in a bloodless world war that will wipe out the savings of millions of American families. Overnight, on the international currency exchange, the "almighty dollar" plummets in value, to be replaced by a new global currency, the "bancor." In retaliation, the president declares that America will default on its loans. "Deadbeat Nation" being unable to borrow, the government prints money to cover its bills. What little remains to savers is rapidly eaten away by runaway inflation.

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their ninety-seven-year-old patriarch dies. Once the inheritance turns to ash, each family member must contend with disappointment, but also--as the U.S. economy spirals into dysfunction--the challenge of sheer survival.

Recently affluent, Avery is petulant that she can't buy olive oil, while her sister, Florence, absorbs strays into her cramped household. An expat author, their aunt, Nollie, returns from abroad at seventy-three to a country that's unrecognizable. Her brother, Carter, fumes at caring for their demented stepmother, now that an assisted living facility isn't affordable. Only Florence's oddball teenage son, Willing, an economics autodidact, will save this formerly august American family from the streets.

The Mandibles is about money. Thus it is necessarily about bitterness, rivalry, and selfishness--but also about surreal generosity, sacrifice, and transformative adaptation to changing circumstances.

From the Back Cover

In 2029, the United States is engaged in a bloodless world war that will wipe out the savings of millions of American families. Overnight, the "almighty dollar" plummets in value, to be replaced by a new global currency, the bancor. In retaliation, the president declares that America will default on its loans. The government prints money to cover its bills. What little real currency remains for savers is eaten away by inflation.

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable inheritance, once their patriarch dies. When their birthright turns to ash, what began as mere disappointment spirals into the challenge of sheer survival.

In The Mandibles, Lionel Shriver brings the full power of her creative imagination to bear on a topic that seeps into every corner of our lives: money. Using her ability to nail the zeitgeist, droll humor, and psychological insight, Shriver has created an unforgettable and engrossing fictional world.

Review Quotes

"Lionel Shriver's brilliant new novel, set in a dystopian Brooklyn, will feel hilariously, troublingly, familiar." - Elle
"In the midst of this maelstrom of adversity are four generations of the once well-to-do Mandible family, desperately trying to survive in an overrun Brooklyn house. Despite the intricately described hardships faced by its protagonists, The Mandibles is as funny as it is ambitious." - Interview Magazine
"Shriver has written herself into The Mandibles, in the form of Nollie, an expatriate American author in her mid-seventies, living in France off the proceeds of her one hit novel. Although the line between public image and self-image, between self-parody and self-congratulation, is a tricky tightrope for any author to walk, she clearly had fun up on the wire...Nollie never loses her cool. I doubt Shriver does either. It takes some nerve to describe oneself as a "mischievous, scandalising provocateur" in print, but she has earned that right, too." - Sydney Morning Herald
"Shriver's imaginative novel works as a mishmash of literary fiction and dystopian satire." - Publishers Weekly
"This is a sharp, smart, snarky satire of every conspiracy theory and hot-button political issue ever spun; one that, at first glance, might induce an absurdist chuckle, until one realizes that it is based on an all-too plausible reality." - Booklist
"It's probably already obvious that Shriver isn't the kind of writer who lets her themes rise gently to the surface. She seizes them with an almost animalistic ferocity and interrogates them for all they're worth. Her smart, satirical fiction is old-fashioned in that it serves as a vehicle for investigating political and social question, but it's also almost uncannily of its moment...Shriver has always seemed to be at least a few steps ahead of the rest of us, but her new novel establishes her firmly as the Cassandra of American letters." - The New York Times Book Review
"In spite of its dark, dog-eat-dog pessimism, the novel holds out hope that the most basic units of the social fabric just might hold together under the pressure of extreme duress. Strangers can't always be trusted, and the government will do everything it can to bleed you dry, but families, even squabbling, deeply dysfunctional ones, have a way of banding together to look out for their own. The moral of the story, in other words, is to cultivate your own garden, which is just what the Mandibles end up leaving New York to do." - The New Yorker
"Instead of '1984, ' read this." - The Washington Post
"Shriver's intelligence, mordant humour and vicious leaps of imagination all combine to make this a novel that is as unsettling as it is entertaining in its portrait of the cataclysmic unravelling of the American dream." - The Financial Times
"Every dystopia is a picture of what the author most dreads; Shriver is better than most at fleshing out her vision and bringing it alive." - The Guardian
"In a Brooklyn soon to be, the upper-middle-class Mandible family copes with extreme water and food shortages, rampant homelessness, and an economy in meltdown. Tracing her characters' varying responses to the emergency, Shriver deftly blends parable and satire with today's headlines, creating a nightmarish world that looms just over the horizon." - O, the Oprah Magazine
"Shriver has always seemed to be at least a few steps ahead of the rest of us, but her new novel establishes her firmly as the Cassandra of American letters....I don't remember the last time a novel held me so enduringly in its grip." - New York Times Book Review
"....[A] powerful work...Prescient, imaginative and funny, it also asks deep questions." - The Economist
The world that the Mandible family must negotiate is evoked in seamless detail... One thing I really like is her coining of made-up slang for her younger generation of characters and her resolutely materialist analysis of what could be coming. - Jane Smiley, The Guardian
"Hilarious, brilliant new novel..." - Elle
"A provocative and very funny page-turner..." - Wall Street Journal
"...[A] provocative and very funny page turner...The future is grim, but Ms. Shriver with characteristically sardonic humor keeps things from getting heavy-handed." - Wall Street Journal
"This is a sharp, smart, snarky satire of every conspiracy theory and hot button political issue ever spun; one that, at first glance, might induce an absurdist chuckle, until one realizes that it is based on an all-too-plausible reality." - Booklist (starred review)
"It's scaring the hell out of me." - Tracy Chevalier
"Distinctly chilling." - Independent (UK)
"Known for tackling big contemporary issues head-on, Shriver deals skilfully here with the implications of economic meltdown. The novel, set in a near-ish future, tells of the plight of the once wealthy Mandible family and the decline of four generations into penury, thieving and prostitution." - Financial Times (A Summer Pick of 2016)
"[Shriver has] a sharp social eye and a blistering comic streak, and her focus on nailing down the economic nitty-gritty of her plot is only one piece of the great, disconcerting fun she has in sending the world as we know it so vividly to hell." - The New Yorker's Page-Turner Blog