Abominations

Selected Essays from a Career of Courting Self-Destruction

Lionel Shriver

• Publisher: Harper
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780063094291
• eBook ISBN: 9780063094314
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

“A rare voice, someone who challenges orthodoxies in the way that many journalists and public intellectuals claim to do but don’t. It is bracing to spend time in the company of such a smart, plain-spoken and unpredictable person.”—Wall Street Journal

A striking collection of essays from the prize-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Should We Stay or Should We Go, So Much for That, and The Post-Birthday World.

Novelist, cultural observer, and social satirist Lionel Shriver is among the sharpest talents of our age. A writer who embraces “under-expressed, unpopular or downright dangerous” points of view, she filets cherished shibboleths and the conformity of thought and attitude that has overtaken us.

Bringing together thirty-five works curated from her many columns, features, essays, and op-eds for the likes of the Spectator, the Guardian, the New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, speeches and reviews, and some unpublished pieces, Abominations reveals Shriver at her most iconoclastic and personal. Relentlessly skeptical, cutting, and contrarian, this collection showcases Shriver’s piquant opinions on a wide range of topics, including religion, politics, illness, mortality, family and friends, tennis, gender, immigration, consumerism, health care, and taxes.

In her characteristically frank manner, Shriver shrewdly skewers the concept of language “crimes,” while chafing at arbitrary limitations on speech and literature that crimp artistic expression and threaten intellectual freedom. Many an essay in Abominations reflects sentiments that have “brought hell and damnation down on my head,” as she cheerfully explains, and have threatened her with “cancellation” more than once.

Throughout, Shriver offers insights on her novels and explores the perks and pitfalls of becoming a successful artist. In revisiting old pieces and rejected essays, Shriver updates and expands her thinking. “Enlightened” progressive readers will find plenty to challenge here. But they may find, to their surprise, insights with which they agree.

A timely synthesis of Shriver's expansive work, Abominations reveals this provocative, talented writer at her most assured.

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I: The Private Sector
• Women of Letters Talk for Ubud Readers and Writers Festival
• “Putting Away Childish Things”
• “Terminal Friendship”
• “My Teenage Diary”
• “The Big Story”
• Greg Shriver’s Memorial Tribute
• Part II: “What Did You Do in the War, Mommy?”
• “Fiction and Identity Politics”
• “Liberals Now Defy the Etymology of the Word”
• “Writers Blocked”
• “Cruel and Unusual Punishment”
• “Lefty Lingo”
• Part III: Confessions of an Expat
• “Bye-Bye Belfast”
• “No Exit”
• “Patrios”
• Part IV: Getting the Blood Running
• “Ode to the Hacker”
• “London’s Unofficial Olympic Sport”
• “Your Gym Routine Is Worthless”
• Part V: Against the Grain
• “I Am Not a Kook”
• “Ikea’s Real Genius”
• “Our Institutions No Longer Understand What They Are For”
• “Dear WriteNow”
• “He, She, and It”
• “A Monumental Matter”
• “Would You Want London to Be Overrun by Americans like Me?”
• “The Criminalization of Making Money”
• “Quote-Unquote”
• “Lionel Shriver Is Grateful for Pandemic Quarantine (No She Isn’t)”
• Part VI: End Papers
• “In Defense of Death”
• “I Was Poor, but I Was Happy”
• “Friendship Agonistes”
• “‘I’ll Never Put Up with Life in a Care Home,’ and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves”
• “Just Because We’ve Been OK Doesn’t Mean We’ll Stay That Way”
• “Catastrophizing Is My Idea of a Good Time”
• “The Nobody at Cannes”
• “Semantic Drift”
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Also by Lionel Shriver
• Copyright
• About the Publisher