So Much For That

Lionel Shriver

Harper Collins

Otago Daily Times, May 22nd 2010

Lionel Shriver is not afraid to tackle difficult and controversial subjects, as readers of her other novels will be well aware. Like Jodi Picault, she chooses topical and morally problematic themes for her novels, but approaches them in an intellectual and literary manner that I generally find much more satisfying. 

In So Much For That she challenges those who contend that everything can be defined in monetary terms by dissecting the ultimate expression of that ideology, the American health-care system.

Her chief protagonist, Shepherd Knacker has dreamed since childhood of reaching the ‘Afterlife’, in which he means to exchange the middle-class rat race for a simple (and inexpensive) life in Africa.  The novel opens when, after years of planning, saving and procrastination, he has finally purchased three one-way tickets to the island of Pemba, and is determined to depart with (or without) his family.   Determined, that is, until his wife Glynis reveals she has mesothelioma.  In a disturbing example of nominative determinism, he finds himself guiding his wife through an aggressive and futile series of treatments as his precious savings disappear in an endless stream of liabilities and co-payments. 

A further drain on his finances come from his sister, who expects him to support her artistic ‘career’, and to pay for their father’s care so she doesn’t have nurse him. Dutiful and uncomplaining in the face of such blatant selfishness, Shepherd toils a job he hates, in a company he used to own, to ensure Glynis has insurance cover and there is food on the table.  His days are spent dealing patiently with customer complaints and his nights by tending his wife and filling out forms and writing letters appealing against claims the insurers have declined. 

In contrast to his stoicism and sense of social responsibility, his best friend Jackson rails against government, taxes, and the thousands of ‘mooches’ who live off the hard-working ‘mugs’ like themselves. While Shepherd dreams of escape, Jackson is determined to beat the system, but both men ultimately snap under the strain, with dramatically different results.

Although none of the protagonists – with the exception of Shepherd – are particularly likable, they are realistically human in their responses to fear, illness, and to a society that seems to value self-interest and material possessions above all else.   Yet they are also oddly two-dimensional, defined by one or two characteristics (selfishness and resentment, vanity, naivety, stoicism). 

Driven as much by the internal reflection as by action, there is the occasional hollow tone, as if Shriver’s own frustration with the worst aspects of American society was sometimes spoking through, rather than developed from, her characters. This is also evident in the title, whose words could be interpreted as both astonished disbelief at the price levied for survival and frustrated rejection of a failed experiment.  On the other hand, didacticism is not uncommon in morality tales, and the ending of the novel suggests that it is intended to be a fable of our times as much as a piece of social realism. 

Despite these reservations, So Much For That is a well-written and challenging novel, and left me glad to live in a country where health care is distributed according to need, not ability to pay.