7.2 /10 1 Votes
Language English Pages 402 pages | 3.6/5 Goodreads Originally published 2016 Preceded by Big Brother | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Publisher The Borough Press, Harper Media type Print, e-book, audiobook Similar We Need to Talk About Ke, So Much for That, The Post‑Birthday World, A Perfectly Good Family, Barkskins | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The mandibles the must read gateway book for understanding the near future
The Mandibles: A Family, 2029-2047 is a 2016 novel, the thirteenth by American author Lionel Shriver. It was first published in the United Kingdom in May 2016 through The Borough Press and was published in the United States in June of the same year by Harper. The novel received mixed reviews.
Contents
Synopsis
The book is set in the United States in 2029 during a world war that results in the collapse of the country's economy and the rise of a supranational currency, bancor, led by a group of countries. The United States is deliberately excluded from this group, a move that causes President Dante Alvarado to take drastic measures, which includes resetting the national debt. Any and all gold now belongs to the government and owning bancors will result in treason charges. Treasury bonds are now null and void, which results in the bankruptcy of many. One family, the Mandibles, are hit particularly hard by the devaluation of American currency, as they were all expecting to inherit an enormous fortune from the family's patriarch. Now they are unable to continue living in their former lifestyles and they are willing to go to any length to ensure survival.
Critical reception
The Irish Times commented that the book "can be accused of many things. It’s a bubbling, spitting pot of its author’s agendas, but laced with Shriver’s spicy intellect, her unapologetic eye for detail, her suitcase of deviant ideas, it is also a salient, spellbinding read." The Guardian and the Financial Times also reviewed the work, the latter of which wrote that "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".
The Independent was more neutral, as they felt the book was "ambitious, but flawed". Ken Kalfus, writing for the Washington Post, criticized the book for being humorless and its reliance on expository dialogue. The Economist criticized the novel for similar reasons.
Speaking about the book Lionel Shriver said "I wanted to write a dystopic novel set in the very near future. But that's an established form and I needed to make my project distinctive. I didn't think there had been a lot of novels written about the dystopic economic future. Having, like the rest of us, gone through the whole 2008 financial debacle I thought I had plenty of material. My reading on what happened in 2008 is that we dodged a bullet. I feel as if that bullet is still whizzing around the planet."