Summary | Author | Book Reviews | Discussion Questions
The Post-Birthday World
Lionel Shriver, 2007
HarperCollins Publishers
528 pp.
In Brief
In this eagerly awaited new novel, Lionel Shriver, the Orange Prize-winning author of the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, delivers an imaginative and entertaining look at the implications, large and small, of whom we choose to love. Using a playful parallel-universe structure, The Post-Birthday World follows one woman's future as it unfolds under the influence of two drastically different men.
Children's book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart, loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid. Until the night Irina unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player Ramsey Acton. The decision to give in to temptation will have consequences for her career, her relationships with family and friends, and perhaps most importantly the texture of her daily life.
Hinging on a single kiss, this enchanting work of fiction depicts Irina's alternating futures with two men temperamentally worlds apart yet equally honorable. With which true love Irina is better off is neither obvious nor easy to determine, but Shriver's exploration of the two destinies is memorable and gripping. Poignant and deeply honest, written with the subtlety and wit that are the hallmarks of Shriver's work, The Post-Birthday World appeals to the what-if in us all. (From the publisher.)
top of page
About the Author
• Birth—May 18, 1957
• Where—Gastonia, North Carolina, USA
• Education—B.A., M.F.A Columbia University
• Currently—lives in Brooklyn, New York, and London, England
At age seven, Lionel Shriver decided she would be a writer. Years later, her first six novels were all well received, and they created a loyal fan base among her readership. A graduate of Columbia University, Shriver has also written for the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and the Philadelphia Enquirer. This work, About Kevin, was inspired in part by the author's personal determination not to procreate.
Shriver's debut novel, The Female of the Species (1987) is a daring page-turner, with characters readers love to root for. Gray Kaiser became famous when she discovered a remote African village as a young anthropologist. Now, Gray is returning to the village to make a documentary, with an assistant and Raphael, a graduate student 35 years her junior. When Raphael and Gray become lovers, their relationship transforms Gray from a brilliant scholar to a lovesick, helpless victim.
In Checker and Derailleurs (1988), the Derailleurs and their enigmatic drummer, Checker, find themselves in the middle of a local band showdown. When a rivalry ensues with another, less talented drummer, Checker marries and leaves the club where he has made a name for himself. In a clever and touching novel, Shriver captures what it's like to be 19 years old with rock-and-roll dreams.
Shriver's third novel, The Bleeding Heart (1990) was written while she was living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which is also the setting of the book. American Estrin Lancaster falls in love with a single-minded bomb maker, and she becomes involved in the tangled Irish politics of the region and an equally knotted love affair. True to life, Shriver doesn't present a solution to these fictional situations either.
Her next books deal with subjects as varied as international intrigue and family politics. Game Control (1994) is set in modern-day Nairobi. Misanthrope Calvin Piper develops a plan to reduce global population by one-third, under the guise of ‘population control.' In A Perfectly Good Family (1996), the conservative children of wealthy liberals are left to deal with the estate after their parents' death.
Love and sports clash in Double Fault (1997). When two mid-ranked tennis players meet and fall in love, their married life is idyllic until they begin to compete for recognition on the courts. When Willie, always the better of the two players, suffers an injury, her jealously spins out of control when her husband plays the U.S. Open. As only Shriver can do it, this novel doesn't let the reader off easy with a simple love-conquers-all story; instead, we get the full brunt of Willie's irrational rage, and a truthful record of its effects.
Although Shriver had written daring and absorbing novels since 1987, it wasn't until 2003's We Need to Talk About Kevin that Shriver became a household name. Beautiful and deeply disturbing, the novel asks one of the toughest questions a parent can ask of themselves: have I failed my child? When Kevin Khatchadourian murders nine of his classmates at school, his vibrant mother Eva is forced to face, openly, her son's monstrous acts and her role in them. Interestingly enough, when Shriver presented the book to her agent, the agent rejected the project. Shriver shopped her book around on her own, and eight months later it was picked up by a smaller publishing company. As Publisher's Weekly comments, "A number of fictional attempts have been made to portray what might lead a teenager to kill a number of schoolmates or teachers, Columbine style, but Shriver's is the most triumphantly accomplished by far.
Extra
When asked by Barnes and Noble editors, in a 2004 interview, what her favorite book is, here is her answer:
Catch-22, by Joseph Heller. The first "grown-up" novel I ever read, at 12, which convinced me that fiction for adults needn't be humorless, or laborious to read. I had read it eight times by the time I hit the tenth grade. There's an amoral, anarchic quality to Heller's satire that struck a chord. After all, in the end Yossarian goes AWOL in WWII, which is hard to make sympathetic. (From Barnes & Noble.)
top of page
Critics Say. . .
Although the decision to depict Ramsey and Lawrence as such polar opposites makes for a schematic story line, this flaw is steamrollered by Ms. Shriver’s instinctive knowledge of her heroine’s heart and mind and her ability to limn Irina’s very different relationships with these two men. Relying on the same gift for psychological portraiture that she used in her award-winning 2003 novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ms. Shriver makes palpable both Irina’s magnetic attraction to Ramsey and the ease and comfort she feels with Lawrence.
Michiko Kakutani - New York Times
Lionel Shriver's wonderful new novel, her latest since the prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin, creates parallel universes that indulge all our what-if speculations. Spared any fork-in-the-road choices, Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator, can have her beefcake and eat it too. A professional, independent woman not enamored of feminist bumper stickers, Irina admits, "The only thing I can't live without is a man." In this case, Shriver grants her two.
Mameve Medwed - Washington Post
Shriver is very obviously a perceptive observer and clever chronicler of the human condition, in all its messy, unresolved glory.
Sunday Times (London)
Shriver writes with much intelligence and wryness....The twofold nature of the plot...makes for enlightening reading.
Christian Science Monitor
Extraordinary...Before it was co-opted and trivialized by chick lit, romantic love was a subject that writers from Flaubert to Tolstoy deemed worthy of artistic and moral scrutiny. This is the tradition into which Shriver’s novel fits.
Entertainment Weekly
The smallest details of staid coupledom duel it out with a lusty alternate reality that begins when a woman passes up an opportunity to cheat on her longtime boyfriend in Shriver's latest (after the Orange Prize-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin). Irina McGovern, a children's book illustrator in London, lives in comfortable familiarity with husband-in-everything-but-marriage-certificate Lawrence Trainer, and every summer the two have dinner with their friend, the professional snooker player Ramsey Acton, to celebrate Ramsey's birthday. One year, following Ramsey's divorce and while terrorism specialist "think tank wonk" Lawrence is in Sarajevo on business, Irina and Ramsey have dinner, and after cocktails and a spot of hash, Irina is tempted to kiss Ramsey. From this near-smooch, Shriver leads readers on a two-pronged narrative: one consisting of what Irina imagines would have happened if she had given in to temptation, the other showing Irina staying with Lawrence while fantasizing about Ramsey. With Jamesian patience, Shriver explores snooker tournaments and terrorism conferences, passionate lovemaking and passionless sex, and teases out her themes of ambition, self-recrimination and longing. The result is an impressive if exhausting novel.
Publishers Weekly
Expatriates in London, children's book illustrator Irena McGovern and longtime partner Lawrence, a head-in-the-clouds sort who works at a think tank, are quietly content with their routine lives. Then, when Lawrence is away on business, Irena is saddled with the responsibility of taking out an old friend for his birthday. The ex-husband of an author Irena has worked with, Ramsey Acton is unpredictable, electric, slightly uncouth-and one of England's best-known snooker players. To Irena's surprise, she feels an urgent attraction to Ramsey on their evening out and is stuck with the inevitable question: should she or shouldn't she? In real life, we can never have it both ways, but in this original and involving work, Orange Prize winner Shriver (We Need To Talk About Kevin) gets to indulge. In alternating chapters, she details what happens when Irena takes the erotic plunge with Ramsey and then what happens when she doesn't. The technique works surprisingly well. Sometimes one story is more engaging than the other, but the two versions are seamlessly knit, and in the end both are convincing and beautifully told. Highly recommended.
Library Journal
A layered and unflinching portrait of infidelity-with a narrative appropriately split in two. In the opening chapter, Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin, 2003, etc.) introduces three people suffering mid-life crises in late-1990s London: Irena, a children's book illustrator; her longtime romantic partner, Lawrence, a researcher at a political think tank; and Ramsey, a wealthy snooker pro who's recently divorced Jude, Irena's former professional partner. The four used to celebrate Ramsey's birthday together, but Lawrence is traveling and Jude is out of the picture, leaving Irena and Ramsey to while away an evening together. A polite dinner soon drifts into heavy flirting, and from there the story breaks into two narratives with alternating chapters: In one, Irena pursues an affair with Ramsey and leaves Lawrence; in the other, she restrains herself and stays loyal. Each choice has its downside. Ramsey, despite his outwardly suave demeanor, proves to be a childish lout who's prone to jealousy, drinks heavily and is tormented about his failure to win the national snooker championship; the sex is great (and crucial for keeping the peace), but his demands on Irena's time and emotions threaten her professional and family relationships. Life with Lawrence is more stable, but she's dogged by an urge to break away from humdrum domestic rhythms and increasingly suspicious of Lawrence's behavior. Shriver pulls off a tremendous feat of characterization: Following Irena across 500-plus pages and two timelines offers remarkable insight into her work habits, her thought processes, the way she argues with friends and family, the small incidents of everyday life that make her feel either trapped orfree. Better yet, the author is more interested in raising questions about love and fidelity than in pat moralizing. Readers will wonder which choice was best for Irena, but Shriver masterfully confounds any attempt to arrive at a sure answer.
Kirkus Reviews
top of page
Book Club Discussion Questions
1. In The Post-Birthday World, we get to see Irina lead two very different lives based on a choice she makes between two men. Have you ever wondered what your life would be like had you chosen a different path?
2. In each universe that Irina inhabits, she is drawn to the man she let go. Do we always want what we can't have? Why are the choices that we didn't make so appealing in retrospect?
3. In the characters of Lawrence and Ramsey, Irina is offered the choice between two opposites: where Lawrence is predictable, Ramsey is wild; where Ramsey is extravagant, Lawrence is disciplined. Do you think that by casting the men so differently Shriver is portraying general male stereotypes, or is there some truth in these characters? What are the pros and cons of each man as a partner? Do women prefer one type to another at different times in their lives? Why?
4. Is Irina the same person in her relationship with Lawrence as she is in her relationship with Ramsey? Do you think that the person you're with determines the person you are, or would you be the same person no matter with whom you're in a relationship?
5. Irina is happy and unhappy in both universes, with both men. Who do you think Irina is happiest with? If she had both men before her and could see her different lives with each, which man would she choose? Which man would you choose to be with?
6. Irina is a self-sufficient and highly successful woman, yet throughout The Post-Birthday World she believes that her ultimate happiness will come from a man. Does Irina's recognition that she needs a man in her life characterize her as a throwback to a pre-feminist era, or can she need a man in her life and still be self-actualized?
7. Children are completely absent from this story. How does this affect the characters, their decisions, and their relationships?
8. How much of our choice about the person we end up in a relationship with has to do with fate and how much has to do with the decisions we make over the course of our lives? And are the decisions you might make in your 20s different from the choices you'd make in your 30s, 40s, or 50s?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
|
|
|
