The Mandibles: A Family, 20292047

(Paperback)

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THE BRILLIANT NEW NOVEL FROM THE ORANGE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

Distinctly chilling Independent

Unsettling as it is entertaining Financial Times

It's scaring the hell out of me Tracy Chevalier
In this eerily prophetic novel from the Orange Prize-winning author ofWe Need to Talk About Kevin, a once-wealthy family faces the prospect of ruin. This apocalypse is financial the dollar is in meltdown, Americas national debt far beyond repayment.

It is 2029.

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies, but now their inheritance is turned to ash. Each family member must contend with disappointment, but also as the effects of the downturn start to hit the challenge of sheer survival.

Recently affluent Avery is petulant that she cant buy olive oil, while her sister Florence is forced to absorb strays into her increasingly cramped household. As their father Carter fumes at having to care for his demented stepmother now that a nursing home is too expensive, his sister Nollie, an expat author, returns from abroad at 73 to a country thats unrecognizable.

Perhaps only Florences oddball teenage son Willing, an economics autodidact, can save this formerly august American family from the streets

Reviews

Praise for THE MANDIBLES: A Family, 20292047

As ever, Shriver cuts close to the bone! . . . Distinctly chilling Independent

A tale that fizzes with ideas and jokes . . . the comedy is pitch black The Times

All too chillingly plausibleprofoundly frightening Observer

Shriver is fast becoming the go-to novelist for some of the big issues . . . breezy, mordantly comic . . . if the test of a futuristic novel is its eerie proximity to the present, this passes with flying colours Daily Mail

A gleeful nightmare, it made me snort with laughter even as I was shuddering SARAH WATERS, Best Books of the Summer, Guardian

Brilliant satire frankly terrifying SARAH CHURCHWELL, Best Books of the Summer, Guardian

Searing establishes her firmly as the Cassandra of American letters I dont remember the last time a novel held me so enduringly in its grip The New York Times

A powerful work investigating the fragility of the financial world. Prescient, imaginative and funny, it also asks deep questions The Economist

Impressively sweeping Shrivers intelligence, mordant humour and vicious leaps of imagination all combine to make this a novel that is as unsettling as it is entertaining Financial Times

A sharp social eye and a blistering comic streak great, disconcerting fun The New Yorker

Hilarious and brilliant scary in the best possible way Elle

A provocative and very funny page-turner Wall Street Journal

Shriver really makes you think about the nature of money . . . By the end, The Mandibles had got under my skin Evening Standard

It's scaring the hell out of me TRACY CHEVALIER

A scary, depressing and convincing horror story Spectator

Insightful and darkly funny Good Housekeeping

Author Bio

Lionel Shriver's novels include the National Book Award finalist So Much for That, the New York Times bestseller The Post-Birthday World, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian and the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and many other publications. She lives in London and Brooklyn, New York.