Chat to author and journalist LIONEL SHRIVER during our webchat on Thursday 19 April at 9pm

[RachelMumsnet]

Book club special: We’re really thrilled to announce that Lionel Shriver will be joining us on this thread for a webchat on Thursday 19 April between 9 and 10pm to answer your questions and tell us about her newly published collection of short stories Property: A Collection.

A widely published journalist, Lionel Shriver is the author of twelve novels, including her controversial book about motherhood, We Need to Talk About Kevin which was the Orange Prize winner (2005) and adapted into a film starring Tilda Swinton. Her last novel, The Mandibles was Mumsnet book of the month last year. Set in the US in 2029 and is a fascinating, believable and entertaining glimpse into the decline of the world’s most powerful nation.

Property is Lionel's first ever collection of short stories and explores the idea of "property" in both senses of the word: real estate, and stuff. Join us to find out more on Thursday at 9pm or post a question for Lionel in advance on this thread.

Everyone who joins the discussion will be entered into a draw to win one of three copies and winners will be announced at the end of the webchat.

Your new collection is called Property. You touched on the importance in property in The Mandibles - what interests you in the idea of property?

@CarrotyO

How much do your books evolve as you write them? As in - do the plot and characters pan out as originally planned or do things change a lot as you go?

I plan the plots out in advance, though I’m not obliged to adhere to the outline. I find it’s character that changes more than plot. They start out as stick figures, caricatures, wispy ideas, but as they flesh out across the book, I start to believe in them, as if they’re real people.

@Kattymanners

I first heard ‘wnttak’ dramatised on woman’s hour R4 and read the book myself soon after. I haven’t and don’t want to see the film though - I feel it probably would be too harrowing !

Most of the subjects you choose to write about are incredibly harrowing though... how do you cope emotionally immersing yourself into a writing such a novel such as big brother (which obviously is a subject close to your heart ) Are you able to distance yourself somehow or is it a kind of therapy or release to put down your thoughts onto paper ?

I enjoy harrowing material. Besides, I always try to leaven heavy subjects with a few jokes. There’s certainly a therapeutic quality to wrestling with issues that may touch my own life in fiction. I’m not sure I felt all that much better after writing “Big Brother”—my real older brother was still dead—but I had at least brought something positive out of an otherwise perfectly negative experience.

@Hygge

I love We Need To Talk About Kevin and often find that people are critical of Eva, which I think is unfair and I loved her as a character.

I'm wondering though what you intended with Franklin?

I disliked him intensely through the entire book and I'd love to know what you think of him and what you hoped others would make of the character.

I know Franklin is a frustrating character, and I intended you to find him exasperating. But I feel more sympathetically toward him. He wants to have a happy family, and imagines that he can bring that happy family into existence through sheer force of will. Big surprise: it doesn’t work.

My daughter is currently writing an essay for A Level discussing empathy for Kevin. She wants me to ask you: To what extent do you believe Kevin can be described as evil and to what extent is he deserving of our empathy? Are they mutually exclusive?

@Cismyfatarse

What are the ingredients of a good short story? As a teacher, I try very hard to teach pupils how to tell a good tale. There are obvious things (plot, character etc) but if you were teaching a group of teenagers what would be your advice to them beyond reading as much as possible?

Thanks

It might be useful to have students come up with something that happened in their own lives, and then have them shape it into a story—and force them to divert from what really happened. It’s fascinating to discover that sometimes the parts you make up sound more credible than the factually accurate material. Release from fact is liberating. It gives you a great sense of power.

Ah! I wasn't expecting that! I read 'So Much For That' ages ago but bits of it have really stayed with me - I found it very disturbing in places! Do you deliberately try to shock your readers and if so, is it fun thinking up ways to do so?

I thought you'd say We Need To Talk About Kevin.

@Suzannetakesyoudown

My daughter is currently writing an essay for A Level discussing empathy for Kevin. She wants me to ask you: To what extent do you believe Kevin can be described as evil and to what extent is he deserving of our empathy? Are they mutually exclusive?

Once you put the label of "evil" on anyone, they cease to be human to you. That is a descriptor that reprieves you from understanding them. That's obviously what we do to terrorists. The novel is a long slow process of the narrator finally being able to love her son. So the book clearly plumps for empathy. What makes Kevin seem evil is his own lack of empathy--and at the end of the book, you can tell he is beginning to realize what he did to other people, including his mother.

@bellabelly

Ah! I wasn't expecting that! I read 'So Much For That' ages ago but bits of it have really stayed with me - I found it very disturbing in places! Do you deliberately try to shock your readers and if so, is it fun thinking up ways to do so?

I thought you'd say We Need To Talk About Kevin.

I know you expected me to say KEVIN. But KEVIN doesn't need my love. SMT, which sold far fewer copies, does.

@Love2read22

Your new collection is called Property. You touched on the importance in property in The Mandibles - what interests you in the idea of property?

Yes, and I wrote a whole novel about inheritance, A PERFECTLY GOOD FAMILY, which revolves around the disposition of the family house. I like property disputes because they're so tangible. Fraught w symbolism. And anything to do w real estate in particular is so emotional! Which makes the subject irresistible.

Sorry to be so predictable!

How involved with the film version of Kevin were you? Did it turn out how you wanted?

If you could pick just one more of your novels to be made into a film, which one and why?

@HelenaDove

As a woman who has lost ten stone (140 pounds) and kept it off for over a decade..............i just couldnt bring myself to read Big Brother as im sure it would have reminded me of the stigma and abuse that i encountered daily when i was obese.

its good that the subject has been covered in a novel though.

But unfortunately the stigma and abuse doesnt always stop once the weight is lost..........people who have been left with loose skin as a result are being left to live with the end result and being told both by medical professionals and members of the public here in the UK "tough shit you have brought it on yourself" I was one of the lucky ones...........i lost my weight while still young (29/30) so havent got loads of loose skin .........just a little bit.

But many arent so lucky and just end up exchanging one prison for another one with many who would like them to stay locked up.

“Big Brother” addresses that stigma. When my real brother got heavy, I was enraged by the way people treated him. He was a brilliant man, and suddenly he became just some fat guy. So the novel expresses disgust with the way we judge people in accordance with their weight. I hear you on the excess skin problem. The extra folds are battle scars, in a way. I suspect the emotional scars of being treated so badly are even harder to handle. Congrats on losing and keeping off all that weight, but I’m not surprised that you still sound bitter.

Hello,

I loved your article on gender (and how it's nonsense) and wondered what you thought about the current climate of women being silenced and/or the targets of abuse, particularly online but not exclusively (there have been incidents of real world violence now and it seems to be escalating) if they dare say this.

Do you see any end to this and would the subject inspire you for any future works?

@bellabelly

Sorry to be so predictable!

How involved with the film version of Kevin were you? Did it turn out how you wanted?

If you could pick just one more of your novels to be made into a film, which one and why?

I wasn't involved in the film at all. But I think THE MANDIBLES would make a wonderful film.

Kevin was such brilliant writing, so real. Did you get into a dark mindset while writing it, and if yes, how did you escape that at the end of a writing day?

Hello. Really enjoyed all of your books I've read so far, in particular the New Republic - sadly, I can rather identify with Edgar. Oh well.

Which of your characters do you most identify with?

Hi Lionel,

I really love the way you put the sibling relationship - tense and uncomfortable as it is - at the very heart of "Big Brother." Can you talk more about the complicated push-away and pull-closer dynamics of siblings and the (in my experience) fraught horizontal family dynamic.

Thanks from a big fan!

@TheCunkOfPhilomena

Hello,

I loved your article on gender (and how it's nonsense) and wondered what you thought about the current climate of women being silenced and/or the targets of abuse, particularly online but not exclusively (there have been incidents of real world violence now and it seems to be escalating) if they dare say this.

Do you see any end to this and would the subject inspire you for any future works?

I'm frustrated that we've become so obsessed with every little shade of gender, when we should be moving BEYOND gender. I just don't care that much about being female, and that's my idea of real feminism. It was an accident. If I were born as a man, I'd get used to that, too. I don't want what's between my legs to define who I am. But this has become a super-charged arena in which it is all too easy to put a foot wrong. // As for the abuse online, it's one of the reasons I stay off social media and don't read comments after my articles. It's a form of self-protection. I wish this kind of guardedness weren't necessary.

Hi Lionel
I'd just like to say that the last two lines of "So Much For That" made me really happy. I love your books, but the joy I get from that ending is still a stand out.

Thank you.

Meant to start with’Hi Lionel’, how rude

You wrote a paragraph once about making toast while thinking about something that I still think is one of the best passages I have ever read.

If you could write anything (you probably can) what would you have written that someone else already has? And what do you think you can't write about?

@ShePersisted

Hi Lionel,

I really love the way you put the sibling relationship - tense and uncomfortable as it is - at the very heart of "Big Brother." Can you talk more about the complicated push-away and pull-closer dynamics of siblings and the (in my experience) fraught horizontal family dynamic.

Thanks from a big fan!

By and large, your siblings are your greatest allies, and your greatest foes. Going back and forth between those poles makes the relationship fascinatingand inherently volatile. My relationship with my brothers have been some of the richest in my life. I dedicated PROPERTY to my younger brotherand that dedication was overdue. Our relationship is my longest running love story.

Lionel what will your next book be about? Have you got one on the go?

Thank you for your reply and thank you for writing about this, I completely agree! We need to get rid of gender, not promote it.

@LanaorAna2

You wrote a paragraph once about making toast while thinking about something that I still think is one of the best passages I have ever read.

If you could write anything (you probably can) what would you have written that someone else already has? And what do you think you can't write about?

I'm really interested in the issue of immigration, about which I have many contradictory feelings (after all, I am an immigrant to the UK). TC Boyle wrote a great novel about the subject, THE TORTILLA CURTAIN, which I'd be happy to have authored. I've gone at the issue in bits, from the side, but never full on. I don't know if I'll ever write such a book. Maybe I don't need to, since Boyle has already!