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    So Much for That: A Novel
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    So Much for That: A Novel
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    So Much for That: A Novel
    Ebook576 pages9 hours

    So Much for That: A Novel

    By Lionel Shriver

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    “Shriver has a gift for creating real and complicated characters… A highly engrossing novel.” — San Francisco Chronicle

    From New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver (The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin), comes a searing, deeply humane novel about a crumbling marriage resurrected in the face of illness, and a family’s struggle to come to terms with disease, dying, and the obscene cost of medical care in modern America.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateMar 9, 2010
    ISBN9780061978494
    Unavailable
    So Much for That: A Novel
    Author

    Lionel Shriver

    Although Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including the Guardian, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, she in no way wishes for the inclusion of this information to imply that she is more “intelligent” or “accomplished” than anyone else. The outdated meritocracy of intellectual achievement has made her a bestselling author multiple times and accorded her awards, including the Orange Prize, but she accepts that all of these accidental accolades are basically meaningless. She lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

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    Reviews for So Much for That

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    • 4/5
      One my favorite authors, this book contains too many repetitive rants that detract from a truly beautiful love story. Skim thru the rants and enjoy the rest!
    • 4/5
      This is my third Lionel Shriver novel, and she's definitely becoming a favoured author of mine. In So Much For That, the novel opens with the male protagonist deciding to finally go ahead with his life's dream of escaping the rat race to live on a small island off the coast of Zanzibar, with or without his family. However (and this is no spoiler as the jacket tells you as much), his plans to live the dream are stopped dead in their tracks when his wife announces that she's had a serious cancer diagnosis.The rest of the novel plays out predominantly around the impact that the terminal diagnosis has on his marriage, his family, their friendships and his own life plans. Such a topic could make for a very depressing read, but So Much For That is not so much focused on the sadness of the diagnosis but more on the emotional, practical and financial difficulties of caring for a partner whilst other life problems carry on regardless. It throws out the window the stereotypes of terminal cancer patients somehow being super human and without flaws. Glynis (the wife who has cancer) was a difficult woman to deal with before the diagnosis, and as a patient is more difficult still. She's angry with the cancer, angry with family members who start to make appearances after long absences before the diagnosis, and rude with visitors whose visits she feels are to make themselves feel at peace once she's gone rather than being for her benefit. Doing the right thing is a very difficult line for Shep (the husband) to tread, and the strain of trying to keep the daily plates of life spinning whilst he cares for his wife is huge. This is also a novel that heavily rails against the American health system (although granted this dates back to 2005 so I don't know how much things have progressed). Shep starts the novel with a tidy nest egg after selling his business, but the poor insurance plan provided by his new employer means that he has to cover vast excesses relating to the cancer treatment. Shriver (through this and another back story) is constantly poking at the sore of why those who have worked hard all their lives and paid their taxes should be penalised so heavily when it comes to needing health support, and the difficulties of trying to hold down a paying job when supporting a family member who's seriously unwell.It raises some similar questions to those raised by Atul Gawande in his later non-fictional book Being Mortal: Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End which was interesting, and is searingly honest in it's questioning of whether it's right to spend extortionate sums of money to extend a life under excruciating treatment for short-term gain.In all, this is not a novel falling under misery lit. There's plenty of humour woven into the story, and I didn't find it a sad read despite the subject matter. Nothing escapes Shriver's eagle eye, such as familiar family stories where one sibling is left to bear the brunt of looking after an elderly parent. It's not perfect - at 530 pages it probably took half of that before it become a page turner for me, but it's one of those novels where the second half is good enough to make allowances for that, and the ending is great.4 stars - honest, brave and funny.
    • 4/5
      This is my third Lionel Shriver, and I didn't love it as much as the first two, because the secondary plot was a bit annoying and tiresome. Without it, the book may have garnered five stars and been a more satisfactory length as well.Our hero has a dream, and has had it since he was 15: to work and save enough to finally move somewhere cheap enough to live out the rest of his life without having to work anymore. He marries someone allegedly simpatico, but who manages to find a reason to nix every destination that they explore as a possible retirement grounds. Having had enough delay, he decides at around age 50 to buy the tickets unilaterally and lay down the ultimatum that he is finally going, to Pemba, an island off the coast of Tanzania, very much hopefully with her, but with or without her. And she in turn lays down the bombshell that he can't go, because she's been diagnosed with mesothelioma, and she's going to need his health insurance.Shep loves his wife, and thus do his plans immediately invert. For the next year plus, it's all about trying to keep Glynnis alive and get her well. And each chapter begins with a statement of the balance of his life savings, which falls surely, immediately, and then precipitously, eventually to near nothing. There's a side plot about his friend. I won't summarize that plot or any more of this one... What is wonderful about Lionel Shriver is that she writes about people like me and situations I know. Her characters are in my demographic. These live in Westchester. They have sometimes unspeakable feelings that I have too. Nobody really talks about the expense of end-of-life, and how that expense feels to those who have to undertake it, and how it feels to know you aren't supposed to feel ANYTHING about money when someone's life is at stake, even if the prognosis is hopeless.Shep really does love his wife, but he's not unfeeling about the fact that the means to fulfill his life's dream is dribbling and then pouring away into her probably futile treatments; and the tragic fact is that he is destined to outlive her, and might still want to pursue his dream.Oh, and then there's his aging father and guilt-trip-laying sister. Yes, these books are really about people like me and situations I know.It's all very real and not something you usually read a novel about. And the ending is FANTASTIC.
    • 5/5
      I laughed out loud at times, but I wouldn't tag this book as humour. It's mostly dark and sad. In fact, I'd say it's a realistic perspective on what it's like to find out that your wife has mesothelioma: It's terrible. Despite all the money and energy you put into 'fighting' the disease it still kills you - and it's not at all a peaceful death. Actually, although many will see this as primarily a book about the American health care system and its financial burden, I saw it as very much a story about the idea of 'fighting' against illness and disease. Is this some noble process in which your effort and virtue are rewarded by restoration to good health? or is it as useless as fighting the weather? Two characters in this novel deal with their terminal diseases in quite different ways and the reader is challenged to think about what really is the most appropriate response. Further, we see different perspectives on American society as a whole - of which the health care system and its treatment of participants is perhaps an archetype. I reckon Shriver is a very perceptive observer of the human condition and I've enjoyed all her work I've read so far.
    • 3/5
      THIS IS A REVIEW OF THE AUDIOBOOK VERSIONBook DescriptionShep Knacker has spent most of his adult life preparing for "The Afterlife"—his shorthand for early retirement in a Third World country where his nest egg will last longer. Numerous research trips with his wife Glynis have narrowed down the options to an island off the coast of Africa. Yet Glynis always finsa one reason or another to delay The Afterlife. Impatient to pull the trigger (after all, he sold his handyman company for $1 million a few years back and has been miserably slaving away for the asshat new owner since then), Shep decides he is ready to start enjoying The Afterlife NOW—even if that means going without Glynis and their teenage son Zack. With one-way tickets in hand, Shep girds himself to do battle with Glynis to convince her that he isn't willing to wait any longer, that The Afterlife must begin now. However, it turns out that Glynis has news of her own—she's been diagnosed with a rare but deadly form of cancer called peritoneal mesothelioma. What can a good husband do? Of course, Shep delays The Afterlife. Yet as the months tick by and the balance of his retirement account dwindles steadily due to mounting medical bills, Shep begins to realize that The Afterlife might never be in his grasp.My ThoughtsYou just never know what you are going to get with a Lionel Shriver book. After thrilling to the parallel universes in The Post-Birthday World and feeling depressed and disturbed after her stunning We Need To Talk About Kevin, I signed up for her latest book without hesitation. I so wish I'd listened to the reviews I'd read beforehand that said that the book felt more like a diatribe against the U.S. health-care system than a novel as So Much For That was a bit of a slog.Shep's best friend, Jackson, takes on the role of pissed-off ranter—launching on these epic rants about Mooches and Mugs (his favorite term for all the corrupt asshats who are sticking it to us idiots). These rants quickly grew tiresome, and I felt that Shriver let Jackson run on way too long. In addition, I thought the ending was unrealistic and uncharacteristic of Shriver. I honestly couldn't believe how she ended the book. If there was ever a book made for an unhappy ending, this was it. Yet Shriver turned everything on its head and gave these very unlikable characters an almost fairytale ending that just didn't jibe with the rest of the book. (Well, except for Jackson.)That being said, Shriver is still is darn good writer. Her focus on little details and her way with words made this book tolerable. However, her writing skills often created vivid and graphic scenes that were almost too much for me to handle. At one point, when Shriver described some bodily functions plaguing Glynis, I felt my stomach turning with nausea. In addition, a subplot with Jackson's botched surgery contained one too many graphic descriptions that almost turned me off of intimate relations forever. Let's just say this: you'll never look at an "Enlarge Your Penis" spam e-mails the same way again.In the end, this book felt more like Shriver communicating an agenda rather than writing a novel. Still, the lady (yes ... Lionel Shriver is a woman ... it threw me off the first time I read her books) can write and that saved this from being a complete turn-off ... but just barely.About the Narration: I thought Dan John Miller did an excellent job narrating what must have been a difficult and long read. His voice was gripping, and I didn't mind spending more than 17 hours listening to him. In fact, his narration may have kept me in the book longer than if I had read it in print. (I definitely would have skipped over almost any Jackson rant in the print version.) In addition, Miller created different voices for each character, including Shep, Glynis, Jackson and Jackson's disabled daughter Flicka. (I'll confess, when I first heard his voice for Flicka, it was a real turn-off and almost seemed like a parody. Yet, as I listened, I grew accustomed to it and thought perhaps the voice brought the character to life in a way she might not have come to life in the print version.) It was amazing to me how Miller could morph into each character's voices and I'd know immediately who was talking ... even between Shep and Jackson.Recommended for: People who have an axe to grind against Big Government, the health-care system, politicians and the "system" in general ... you'll find an ally in Jackson! I honestly don't know that I'd recommend this book to anyone. It wasn't an easy read/listen, the characters were often unlikeable, and the "plot" felt more like a chance for Shriver to communicate an agenda rather than craft a cohesive and gripping narrative. (I'm not saying I disagree with Shriver's agenda and criticisms. I just felt she bludgeoned the reader with it.) Although Shriver can write, she has written better books than this one.
    • 4/5
      Wow. This is a hard book to read, and all the more so because many of the characters are equally hard to find empathy for. We follow the lives of two married couples, Shepherd and Glynis, and Carol and Jackson. All are close friends, with Shep and Jackson working together. Originally, Shep was the owner of the handyman company, but made the decision to sell so that he could use the proceeds to fund his escape to the "afterlife" - his dream of living in Africa on minimal funds as simply as possible.Shep is perceived as a dreamer by his wife and their friends, who never believe that he'll act on his plans. As we meet him, he has lived a straight and respectable life, though we can see that his morality is continually taken advantage of.The prospect of death looms throughout the book, for reasons I won't go into here, but the book's lesson is about life. I'm starting to think that Shriver has been quite underrated. It is important to write about the things that no-one wants to talk about, and her personal reasons for writing the book (outlined in the acknowledgements) emphasise this importance.****editing as I've been prompted by abbottthomas's review below to mention the NHS in the UK. How any American could object to national subsidised healthcare after reading this book is beyond me. Where would you find hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide medicine and care for someone you love if they become ill? Social care is not the same as socialism.
    • 4/5
      Shep Knacker has a dream. As a one-time business owner who has sold out for a million dollars, he now works a regular job, biding his time. Shep has been stashing away his fortune with the intent of fleeing to a tropical paradise to spend the rest of his days, which he calls The Afterlife. But when he decides to go there immediately, with or without his wife Glynis (her choice), he gets the surprise of a lifetime. Glynis announces that she has mesothelioma, an aggressive form of cancer, and that Shep’s money would be best applied somewhere else. As Shep deals with his incredibly ill wife, he finds out that his health care plan is really very paltry, and he must use his getaway fortune on the very expensive rounds of treatment his wife requires. Meanwhile, Jackson Burdina, Shep’s best friend and one-time business partner, is having problems of his own. Jackson has a teenage daughter who is afflicted by familial dysautonomia, a debilitating and progressive disease that’s slowly spiraling out of control. Jackson, a very unhappy man, is fond of regaling friends and even strangers with his ranting and raving about the political, social and economic problems in America, and his radical views begin to infect every conversation he has. Between the Knacker and the Burdina families, many ethical and intriguing issues are raised; not only about the characters and their plights, but about the plight of any one of us who may fall critically ill. In Shriver’s dark yet very recognizable world, the persistent struggle of the working class is wonderfully and mischievously elucidated, forming a story of painful beauty and unending strife.I have to say that after reading We Need to Talk About Kevin a few months ago, Shriver has been on my list of authors to watch, and I’ve been very interested in reading her back list. When the review offer came from TLC Books, I didn’t hesitate for a moment, because although Shriver’s writing is as dark as it comes, it’s also incredibly penetrating and full of contradictions that leave her readers questioning not only the material, but themselves as well.There’s no doubt that Shep Knacker is downtrodden. Even before Glynis’ announcement, Shep is the kind of guy who is forever taken advantage of, both emotionally and, more importantly, financially within the scope of the relationships he has. Though he loves his wife, the reader is given to understand that she’s a rather cynical and caustic woman, whom Shep always plays second fiddle to. Though Shep has a great fortune at his disposal, he continues to work for the man who bought his company and is treated like a serf by the passive aggressive man who he must now call his boss. Shep is what his friend Jackson would refer to as a chump, and though he longs to escape from his burdensome life, the announcement that Glynis has cancer puts Shep in a strange place. He immediately lets go of his desire to travel and feels that it’s important to do whatever it takes to make her well. What it entails, in fact, is eating away his nest egg and dredging the bottom of his financial pool of resources. But it’s not like he has any other choice, and once I began to understand just the type of guy Shep was (solid, dependable, morally upstanding) I knew there was no other way he would respond. Shep is the everyman who will do anything for his friends or family, and it was very sad to see his dreams wash away once Glynis’ condition came to light. The fact that he chose to stay and fight was only one of the things that made me admire him.More interesting to me was the secondary plot that involved Jackson and his family. From my perspective, they were living in a nightmare world of feeding tubes, medication upon medication, and a surly attitude that all revolved around his ailing daughter. While I was reading about all of this, I kept asking myself questions about Jackson’s attitude and radical leanings. Was his daughter’s illness and the lengths they had to go to keep it under control the impetus for his ire, or was it all incidental? Secretly, I believed Jackson loved his daughter’s moroseness because it mirrored his own, but there was no doubt that the girl needed therapy. In addition, Jackson is dealing with a troubled marriage, and although it was troubled in a way that was very different than what the Knackers had going on, it was troubled nonetheless. The final resolution for Jackson left me very upset and shocked, and I couldn't help but expend a lot of thought and sympathy over his plight.The one thing that bothered me about this book was its relentless push of the issues it discusses. Mostly it centered on the state of health care in America, and in that rushing maelstrom, Terry Shaivo, Medicare, insurance companies and the government all made their wicked appearance. This issue-spouting mostly came from Jackson’s rants, but it was littered throughout the book, and at times felt indiscriminate and overbearing. I get that Shriver has some problems with the American health care system and with the government, really I do, but this non-stop approach of bombarding the reader with it wore very thin after awhile. She takes her opinions on “mugs” and “moochers” very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I think it weighed down what would have otherwise been a five star book. Thinking back on it, Shriver makes some very good points, but by using Jackson as her mouthpiece, it all felt very aggressive and at times even whiny. This non-stop rant spoiled parts of the book for me, but after awhile, I was able to view it as a character with a predisposition for griping, and finally, I was able to read around it.While this book was very heavy on the issues, the story it told was rather poignant and also very interesting to read. Shriver’s ability to capture her audience early on and hold them by the throat all the way through is not only impressive, but also unusually stimulating. She knows how to tell a hell of a story, and though it’s dark and very portentous, it kept me hooked into the narrative despite some slight misgivings. I was also surprised by the ending. I would recommend this to fans of Shriver and also to new readers because the book really gets to the heart of its characters and their motivations with unusual flair. Though parts of the book were morose, the execution of the story was really quite amazing. A fabulous read with a little gristle that may offend but will surely entertain.
    • 3/5
      Being familiar with this author's style of writing after reading "We Need to Talk about Kevin," I was a little hesitant to pick up another novel by her because, while I liked the story about Kevin, in my opinion, she took way too long to tell it . However, once again I was intrigued by the idea line of her story, and gave in to the urge to try it. Several times I found myself wanting to call it quits because there was so much redundancy to wade through. I ended up resorting to skimming passages and forging ahead because I had to find out how it ended. I’m glad I stuck with it because in the end I liked the book, I would have loved it if it would have been less.
    • 4/5
      Story of a marriage falling apart and terminal illness, ends with the marriage resurrected and the gift of each day enjoyed. Absorbing.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. It is a very timely novel, as the main subject matter involves the failings of the US health service. Reading it in the UK, in the run up to an general election, made it all the more interesting for me. Despite the distance between us, the USA and the UK share remarkably similar difficulties. The author manages to combine tragedy and humour and I found all the characters very convincing and compelling.Lionel Shriver has established herself as a fine writer and having read all her novels, this comes very close to "We Need To Talk About Kevin", which is a truly remarkable book.
    • 4/5
      Having just read "The Mandibles" that I liked very much, I dove right into another Shriver novel. She seems to like to get into issues and in this case it is our health care system. She surrounds this with a story about marriage, children, what is important and ultimately about what is a life worth. Her indictment of the keeping you alive no matter the cost and suffering of cancer was great. The lack of honesty by the medical profession about how long someone really has and the impact of spending $2 million to keep someone alive(in suffering the whole time) for 14 months which is about 6 months more than they would have had with acknowledging the reality and letting the end be done with less pain is illustrated in detail in the novel. Although many of the characters were hard to accept and the fact that Shriver uses the book to espouse her personal viewpoints about the halves and halves not of society can be off putting, the book is a worthwhile read. She is a great writer in terms of her prose. Despite the subject matter, the book has humor and touches on so many aspects of our society. Having read 2 Shriver novels in the last couple of months, I am indeed a fan and encourage people to pick up her books.
    • 5/5
      Although it's a novel, everyone should read this book to get an absolutely perfect picture of life, illness, insurance, job security and on and on. It was so very detailed in the emotions of each of the characters involved. Listening to the audio was excellent----I KNOW these people! Almost a perfect way to begin and end the book. I highly recommend this, five stars and more!
    • 5/5
      With its cleverly assembled cast of the angry and the mild, the liberal and the anti-establishment, this book sets the stage for some spectacular ranting. While the subject matter – the US health system and welfare/tax in general – was interesting to me as a non US-reader, it felt at times that the ranting was going to swamp the plot, with the characters no more than mouthpieces for an angry author.But if I was tempted to chuck the whole lot in as a bad job around the time of the extended exam questions rant, I was won over by the halfway point, and as usual the author’s brilliantly perceptive writing took over and made the book unputdownable.It was often the throwaway lines that made me smile the most - of a sleepover, it is noted that “Zach was spending the night in another boy’s rank, cable-strewn bedroom” (brilliant, just brilliant, it makes me smile every time I think about it).Whatever my doubts about the ending (something a bit too convenient about it perhaps?) it does leave you with a nice warm feeling, and in line with what one reviewer on the cover says, it did make me love the NHS even more than I did before. As (bad) luck would have it, while I was reading this book a close family member had cause to call a doctor out late at night on a weekend, and be rushed to hospital for tests. I was so enmeshed in the story that it had me panicking about the sort of bills that would head our way, and it was with genuine relief that I realised there would be none.OK, and a small matter – was it just me, or was the choice of name for the central character disconcertingly sniggerworthy? It was ages before ‘Shep Knacker’ sounded anything other than bizarre, and then there would come a reference to “the Knackers” and that would be it. Despite the author pointing out the ‘knacker’s yard’ connection, it probably does me no credit that in my case it was always another image that sprung to mind.
    • 4/5
      This is a tale of duty. Shep gives up his dream for everyone else, and is happy to do so. Until a shocking act by his best friend sets him free. I liked this novel and was particular pleased by the resolution. I will read more of Shriver's work.The large number of characters and the way they passed in and out reminded me of a Richard Russo novel. The only weakness I saw in So Much For That was that some of the characters seemed to exist only to advance the plot or to push a political point. They didn't really seem to have natural places in the story or among the other characters. So Much For That translated well to audiobook form despite the large number of characters. I give a lot of credit to the reader Dan John Miller who have quite a range of vocal expression.
    • 4/5
      Probably too depressing for many, but I found this book so absorbing that I couldn't put it down. A clever plot that works out a bit too neatly, but has many believable twists and turns. Of course, if you buy the political point of view about the fallacies of our health care and economic systems, I'm sure the book will go down a lot easier than if you can't handle her truth! One scene was so shocking I had trouble forgetting about it for the rest of the day at work. I really enjoyed this book.
    • 4/5
      Centered around the book's main character, Shepherd Knacker, a handyman who has sold the company he worked hard to build up so that he and most of his family can live the rest of the days somewhere beautiful and simple, this is an often brutal story of a family and their friends who deal with the aggressive cancer of the main character's wife and the toll it takes on them emotionally and financially.Not for the squeamish or faint-hearted, I feel that this is the closest I've come to experiencing the horrors of cancer and it's effect on the patient and their family and friends, though of course as my experience is only through a book so far this may in itself seem trivial. That said, this is not just, or even mainly a book about cancer, but more a focus on the health insurance system in the United States of America and corporate greed and what actions these factors will eventually force good people to take.Although this book was, "preaching to the choir," with regards to myself, I did feel at times that for a novel it was rather heavy handed and leaned more on political diatribe than on plot. Also, having read many of the author's previous works, which I have enjoyed very much, I did not feel that her writing worked as well from a more masculine point of view as from the main female characters of her other works.That said, I do think this a book that is worth reading as there are a lot of important ideas expressed within, politically and emotionally and as always, Lionel Shriver is masterful with her words.
    • 4/5
      Shep Knacker is a handyman in New York City with a dream of moving to a tropical island and giving up all the cares of the big city life. To this end he has been scrimping and saving all his life, keeping his money in an investment account, waiting for the day when he could go, with or without his beloved wife Glynis and their son. However a diagnosis of cancer for Glynis changes everything as well as health problems for Shep's elderly father and also his best friend and fellow handyman Jackson.This book is a commentary on the American medical care system and the failings of medical insurance.After finishing it, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. The themes of illness and lack of adequate and compassionate care would seem to be a downer. Shep is a very wise man so the end of the book is definitely on a positive note. I recommend this book highly.
    • 4/5
      Shep is a man with a plan. His investment account has finally rebounded, and he’s going to quit his crappy job and retire to Africa, where he can do what he want and his dollar will last. His wife, Glynnis, probably doesn’t want to go, but he’s ready to take that chance and move on without her. Unfortunately, she has news of her own — she has cancer. Mesothelioma, to be exact. A particularly virulent cancer that his job as a handyman could have contributed to. So he puts his dream of his 'After-Life' away, and keeps his job so she can use his health insurance, in the process becoming more selfless than he ever believed he could be.Healthcare and who pays for it is a large part of this story, but it’s also about givers and takers, and friendships, and love. Besides Glynnis’s illness, we also learn about Shep’s best friend Jackson, who has a child, Flicka, with a debilitating genetic disease and Shep’s father, whose fall down the stairs results in him living in a nursing home. Jackson also has a bit of a healthcare crisis of his own, though it is largely of his own doing. Parts of the book are hard to read, especially as Glynnis’s sickness worsens. But it’s not all bad. There are some especially sweet moments, like when Glynnis and Shep’s son would come home from school every day to lay on his mother’s bed with her and hold her hand while they watch TV, or when Glynnis and Flicka commiserate, the only two people in their lives who know how and what they feel. Shriver likes to surprise us, and this book is no exception. Her surprise marks a turning point. It’s like the negative force of the novel dissipates enough to give us a happy ending, of sorts. In the end, Shep is a man we can be proud of. The book does get a little bit preachy at times, but I think it’s possible to put your personal politics aside and enjoy the tale.
    • 3/5
      So Much For That is the story of the best-laid plans, changing. Shep has been saving all of his working life for his "after-life", an early retirement in a country with a lower cost of living. Then his wife Glynnis is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and "so much for that". The novel is very much about government, health care, and insurance. One character in particular is prone to long diatribes about these issues. It got a little too preachy for me. But I did enjoy the storyline and most of the characters.
    • 4/5
      Read about this in a review somewhere and thought I'd give it a try, even though it was a good bit different than my normal fare. It was a slow read for me, but I really enjoyed it. The characters were believable and interesting and while there were parts where I wished for more conversation to move things along a bit, the philosophical diatribes did make me think. Shepherd has always been the responsible one, while saving money to spend his retirement, aka "the afterlife", in remote part of the world where his American money would last a lot longer. His wife, Glynnis, has always resisted for one reason or another (often the kids) and now when he says he's going with or without her, she tells him he can't, because she needs his health insurance. She has cancer - mesothelioma - and the treatments will be expensive. But, hey, he has all that money saved up anyway, so there's no reason not to give her the best chance.Along for the ride is Shep's best friend Jackson and his wife Carol, who have their own problems - plenty of them, including a teenage daughter with a rare disease. Jackson believes that Shep is what he calls a 'Mug'. One of the fools who pays his taxes and obeys the laws and let's the 'Mooches' who live off government aid and through doing just the opposite - taking and never giving. Jackson's rants take up a good bit of the first half of the book, and like others, I'd say that once you get through that, the story picks up and while his opinions are still evident, I felt they were easier to take once there was more of a plot.The concept of death - that Glynnis might not recover from her cancer - is something that everybody except Glynnis is aware of. They feel awkward around her - she hates them for that. Shep serves her and does all he can for her - which drives her nuts. Their relationship throughout her illness evolves in a way that is fascinating to follow. While I can see that some people might find the ending a little too predictable, I thought it was quite fitting and didn't feel it betrayed the rest of the book at all. The whole story felt real - like it could have been a memoir and not just a novel. Really interesting....somewhat scary, but definitely thought-provoking in a good way.
    • 5/5
      So Much For That by Lionel Shriver will win awards this year. It has to. If it doesn’t, a black hole of injustice will open and swallow the universe, and we can’t let that happen.Ever since Shepherd Armstrong Knacker was a young man, he planned to take an early retirement to a third world country where he could live the rest of his life happily on five dollars a day. He calls this dream “the Afterlife.” He has worked hard all his life to make that dream happen. He started his own company and sold it for a million dollars. He kept a management position in the company until he felt the family was in a position to move. He has denied himself simple pleasures, but anytime a family member or friend needed something, in particular money, he gave it willingly. He has always played by the rules.When he feels it is time to go, to take what is left of his savings and make the Afterlife a reality, he tells his wife, who has written his dream off as goofy and somewhat pathetic, he has decided to go with or without her. He gives her the same spiel he has given her many times before: "I know we’ve seen plenty of poverty—raw sewage running in gutters and mothers scavenging for mango peels. But they know what’s wrong with their lives, and they have a notion that with a few shillings or pesos or rupees in their pockets things could be better. There’s something especially terrible about being told over and over that you have the most wonderful life on earth and it doesn’t get any better and it’s still shit… I must have forty different ‘passwords’ for banking and telephone and credit cards and Internet accounts, and forty different account numbers, and you add them all up and that’s our lives. And it’s ugly, physically ugly. The strip malls in Elmsford, the K-Marts and Wal-Marts and Home Depots… all plastic and chrome with blaring, clashing colors, and everyone in a hurry, to do what?"And then his wife tells him she has cancer. It turns out to be Mesothelioma. Shepherd does what he has always done. He sacrifices his own desires to take care of those who need him.Shepherd’s wife, Glynis, was an artistic metalsmith, but she has paralyzed herself into inaction with her own exacting standards. She’s a difficult character to like for most of the book. Several times Shepherd compares her demeanor and soul to the very metal she used to work with. Shepherd notes, “Maybe you never really knew anyone until they were dying.” I imagine Shriver had to write Glynis this way to avoid the sentimentality and gushing sympathy the reader would feel for anyone nicer suffering so much. And she does suffer. Shriver depicts the treatments, the side effects, the exhaustion, all of it, in stark detail. This is not a sentimental book. It will not be a Lifetime movie.Shepherd’s father needs to be put in a nursing home. His freeloading sister wants Shepherd to finance her lifestyle. Jackson, Shepherd’s loquacious best friend, rants about the government and basically calls Shepherd an idiot for not “sticking it to the man;” yet, Jackson has his own secrets and problems. As things progress, Shepherd’s savings account dissolves.The book is about how our society and culture treat death and illness. How we talk around it, but never really about it. How we treat those who are terminally ill. It is also a look at a system with stringent rules, but if you play by them, you lose. It is a system where the nice guy really does finish last. It is probably important to note that the events in the book roughly take place between 2004 and 2006, before the Great Recession and ObamaCare. The politics discussed in the book are universal to our consumerist, self-obsessed culture regardless of what political party is in office.I realize all of this sounds depressing. Fear not, Shriver doesn’t wallow in the gloom. It is really a very funny book, though sometimes it is the darkest of comedy given the situations. The characters and especially their inner dialogues drive the book, and ultimately the reader. You want to find out what happens to these people. Bottom line, you need to read this book. Buy it, borrow it, whatever—just read it.
    • 5/5
      Granted, going in I was already a fan of Lionel Shriver, a true wordsmith, whose two previous novels blew me away. So it's no surprise that I found her new novel to be an emotional powerhouse. This novel is a topical, important indictment of the US healthcare system. Shep Knacker finds out what a human life is worth, literally in cash, as he spends his life's savings and loses his dream of "the Afterlife" (early retirement on a secluded tropical island) to fight his wife's battle with cancer. Though parts come across as rather didactic, the characters and the story ring true. brilliant title, brilliant author -- highly recommended
    • 4/5
      While I ended up loving this book, it did take me a while to get into it. Main reason? I found the characters so unlikeable. I couldn't sympathise with them at all and I think, from the subject matter, I was supposed to feel immense sympathy for them. After I got into the book a little more and got more caught up in the story, I cared less about liking the characters so little. "We Need to Talk about Kevin" is one of my favourite books and I love Shriver's style of writing, so that kept me going when the story dragged on a bit. The last 100 pages (or so) finally got me and I couldn't put the book down until I'd finished. The storyline was moving and it made me think about those who are going through this torment even now. I'd probably give this book 3.5 stars rather than 4 because it wasn't quite a 4-star book but it was better than a 3-star.
    • 3/5
      What an incredibly depressing story! Shepherd Knacker and his wife, Glynis, have always lived frugally, splurging only on vacations to research where they will spend their Afterlife, life after retirement. As it became more a reality for Shep, it became more a pipe dream, an unrealistic indulgence for Glynis. Finally after amassing three-quarters of a million dollars by selling his business and becoming an employee, Shep is ready to move to remote Pemba and his wife and son are welcome to go with him or not, their choice. In remarkably bad timing, Glynis announces she has cancer, has been seeing doctors and keeping the secret from Shep, and needs his health insurance. Health insurance doesn't begin to cover the costs, eroding his careful planning. Glynis even blames Shep for the cancer, carrying home asbestos fibers when he was a handyman.Their best friends, Jackson and Carol, have a smart, surly, manipulative daughter with a horrible disease, familial dysautonomia, who refuses to be a cheerful poster child. Their younger daughter is healthy but demands unnecessary medicine and creates symptoms in a quest for some of the attention her sister gets, filling her emptiness with too much food.Most of the characters are abrasive and unlikeable. Shep takes too much responsibility for everyone around him, expecting nothing in return, and his martyrdom comes across as lack of backbone and character, even though his has both in his own way. He is, in Jackson's terms, one of the Mugs, the givers, instead of one of the Moochers, the takers, and a chump. While he may be fluid, like the water in the fountains he enjoys creating, he seems more wimpy than fluid. “Shep's plight clearly illustrated that there was no point to anything and there was no relationship between virtue and reward and there never had been.”Glynis, even before her illness, seems hateful and self-absorbed, afraid to practice her art but denigrating her friend who creates what she considers inferior pieces. In another analogy to her art, she is as hard and shiny as the metal pieces she used to create. Carol is living through her daughter's illness. Jackson rants about the Mugs and the Mooches, about the poor state of health insurance, but doesn't get around to writing the book he imagines, only coming up with numerous titles. He feels, with his wife's help, that he is not really good enough for her and comes up with a disastrous plan to make himself better in her eyes.I started this book with an expectation of three stars, pretty standard unless it proved to be better or worse than I anticipated. It quickly moved to two or maybe two and a half stars. I felt sorry for some of the characters but I didn't like them or care about this as much as I wanted. The book occasionally bogged down with too much explanation or ranting or too much stilted dialogue. Jackson “reserved special contempt for accountants and lawyers, both of whom slyly implied that they were on your side, when this bloated, parasitic caste of interlocutors effectively constituted a penumbral extension of the State, their extortionate fees amounting to more taxes.” It doesn't take much of that for me to really not enjoy a book.So, I really did not like this book until the last 50 or so pages, out of about 425. Those pages caused me to be glad I had slogged through so much depression and frustration, and brought the book back to a solid 3-star rating.
    • 3/5
      Shriver's stories are not so much portrayals of characters as they are of topical issues relating to societal values and politics. So, I agree with other reviewers that it's difficult to get emotionally connected with her characters, except for her book We Need To Talk About Kevin, which is by far my most favorite book.Although I did not care for the other characters that much, I did empathize with Shep's struggle to achieve his dream - he's a good man and his behavior, choices, and actions come across as real. But I also agree that the book is really struggling to be much more than a literary perspective on the American healthcare system.
    • 3/5
      I almost gave up on this novel and hated the first 80 or so pages. Shriver is one of my favourite current authors and I was disapppointed at what seemed to be a trite and conventional (and dull actually) plot. But of course she added a whammy and succeeded in sucking me in and then shocking me. I found the exploration of social issues a little forced and laborious, I'm all for some social commentary and at the time it was topical and necessary, but perhaps not being American the long dealing with the US health system didn't exactly push my buttons. However, as she always does Shriver delivers a dark and bleakly humerous stare into the human condition. The ending surprised me as it was so happy, but perhaps it deserved to be. There's nothing wrong with being free and happy, and this is perhaps the ultimate message of the book.
    • 4/5
      This was a tough book to read because of the subject matter--serious illness and the frustrations of dealing with the US health care industry--and that also makes it a difficult book to evaluate. I went from liking it to disliking it and finally to being totally engrossed in it.The main characters are two friends and co-workers, Sheperd and Jackson. Even though they both hate their boss, they’re terrified of losing their jobs because they need their health insurance to take care of family members who are seriously ill. Shep’s wife has a rare form of cancer and Jackson’s daughter has a rare genetic disorder. If that isn’t enough heartache, Shep also ends up having to take care of his aging father and Jackson has to deal with the results of a botched plastic surgery. Richard often talks about depressing books as “four hankies and a pistol” reads. This one could easily be described as “four pistols and a hankie.”I stuck with it because I like Lionel Shriver so much as a writer and have loved two of her previous books (We Need to Talk About Kevin and The Post Birthday World). This one started out well but then, from about pages 75-175, the character of Jackson spent an inordinate amount of time raving about health care, taxes, education and just generally about being a victim. He sees everything in terms of “the takers vs the taken” and Shriver has him go on ranting for pages at a time. When this finally tapered off, I got back into the story and the book became a page turner. Spoiler Alert--> Despite all the depressing aspects of the book, it actually ends pretty well so there is a payoff for sticking with it. If you could ever convince a book group to read this, it would make for a great discussion. Two of the things that really made an impression on me were (1) the discussion of the military type of language doctors use with patients undergoing chemotherapy (being a "trouper," the "battle" against cancer) which has the unintended consequence of making the patient feel like a failure if the treatments don’t work or they want to give up, and (2) how few family members or friends follow through on their offers to help when someone is seriously ill. The other big elephant in the room is the whole discussion of just what a human life is worth.I could go on about all the issues this book raises but I’ll stop. If you think you’re interested in reading this, I’d take it out of the library because unless you have a stomach for depressing books, it may not be something you can finish. Despite my reservations about the book (the subject matter and the character of Jackson, in particular), I am glad I read it.
    • 2/5
      Strange book. In a way it reminded me of Picoult's work in that it was using current controversial problems on which to hang the narrative. However, (without commenting on Picoult's ouvre) the characters weren't believable, and there was just TOO MANY people suffering from particularly unusual diseases. I could go along with the wife's cancer, but then his best mate's daughter having a problem that very few people in the world suffer from (and I'm only presuming it's true – I haven't looked it up) and then his best mate having his own medical problems was just TOO MUCH. Having said that, there were some insightful things that were said about people suffering from terminal illnesses. Not a jolly book. But after 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', it was almost light relief.
    • 2/5
      On page 367 of the hardback edition, there is this line: "It would be fair to say that Shepherd Armstrong Knacker re-entered the living room a changed man."Up until then, the book is a nasty screed. The rotten US healthcare system (Shep's wife Glynis is dying of cancer). Glynis's rotten family. Shep's rotten boss. Shep's rotten job. Shep's rotten sister. Shep's best friend Jackson delivers long rants about being a middle class chump in America. One of Jackson's daughters, Flicka, has a fatal genetic disorder. Comfort is rejected. Spirituality of any kind is sneered at.But by page 367, Shep is fed up. He decides to escape to an Africa island named Pemba with his dying wife, his teenage son, his aged father, and the remains of his best friend's family. This was his dream from the start. The book's tone softens. Pemba is seen as in travelogue footage, all soft-toned prettiness. This African Brigadoon is the answer to everyone's problems. Insofar as the book is about the glorious pursuit of folly, it is likable. Start on page 367.
    • 5/5
      I love Lionel Shriver.She creates characters that ooze edge. This book has gone straight to my top ten, un-put-downable.