A conversation with the novelist.

Question: What wasrnthe first piece you read that made you want to become a writer?

Lionel Shriver: Oh, I was big on “Curious George.”  I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was seven yearsrnold.  So it was only shortly afterrnI learned to read.  So, it wouldrnhave been the very early books of my childhood; Dr. Seuss, “Where the WildrnThings Are,” and “Curious George.”

I just lovedrnstorytelling.  I loved the way thatrnwords could bring something to life that imaginary.  And I’m still fascinated by that.  So fascinated by the way a novel, little by little, createsrnsomething that seems so tangible and so real, even to me, and yet it isrngossamer really.  It’s justrnwords.  And that’s magic tornme.  And I’ve never got over thatrnmagic.  I hope I never do. 

Question: What wasrnthe first piece you wrote?

Lionel Shriver: Oh, one of the first pieces I wrote was in second grade.  I won a contest writing about our newlyrnrenovated cafeteria.  You know, thernnew colors are very nice.  And Irnremember they were very ceremonial about this little contest and what you gotrnwas a Chef’s hat and a box of cookies. rnSo, I walked around all day wearing my Chef’s hat, and I just thought,rnright – this is the business. I’m going to be a writer. 

I think it’s important thatrnI grew up in a literate household because both my parents have written books,rnalbeit non-fiction.  That made thernwriting of books accessible and doable, not a distant weird thing that otherrnpeople did.  So that helped a lot,rnand also both my parents are well spoken and always talked with their childrenrnusing a large vocabulary.  And that’srna big advantage because I believe that the words that you learned as a childrnget deeper inside than the ones you learn later in life.  I always find that words I learned asrnan adult don’t stick in the same way.   I don’t think I understand them completely in the samernway.  They’re notrninternalized.  There’s a way inrnwhich I have to recite a little definition to myself, they don’t quite stick.  So, I was especially fortunate to bernexposed to a range of more complex words, nuanced language than a lot of otherrnchildren would have been.  

Question: Who is thernfirst person who sees your work?

Lionel Shriver: I show my work before submitting it to my agent to practically nornone.  I will let my husband read itrnbefore I send it to my agent.  ButrnI’ve gotten to the point where I am less interested in soliciting a lot ofrnopinions.  I find that morernopinions tend to obscure my mental landscape.  Most of all, it obscures the fact that the buck stopsrnhere.  You have to be able to trustrnyour own judgment.  It doesn’t meanrnthat I don’t sometimes take my editor’s advice, but fundamentally, I have tornrely on my own opinion of my own work and showing it to my best friend, or evenrnto my husband, it’s ultimately a fruitless exercise because it’s all aboutrnlearning to trust your own editorial judgment.  Which doesn’t mean that you rubberstamp everything yournwrite.  It means that you subjectrnit to your own fiercest criticism. rnIt’s one of the good things about being a writer, it’s also one of therngrim things about being a writer. rnThere is no resort really. rnIt all begins and stops with you. 

Question: Why do yournwrite?

Lionel Shriver: I think writing -- the impulse to write  -- comes out of a failure to communicate by any otherrnmeans.  I think most naturalrnwriters are socially incompetent. rnAnd I would include myself generously in that category, especially as arnchild and in my early adulthood, and yeah, often as not at parties I still feelrnlike a 13-year-old fish out of water, would prefer to crawl off in the cornerrnwith a book. 

Talking only works sornwell.  And you know that feeling ofrnhaving had an encounter with someone and later you think what you should havernsaid.  Well, writing is all aboutrnbeing able to rewrite history and get at what you should have said.  And it’s a way of writing subtexts,rnthat’s the thing is that with social interaction, it’s always got more than onernlayer, and that’s very frustrating. rnAnd with people whom we are trying to be intimate, we’re always fightingrnto get down to the layers.  And it seemsrnthat no matter how many layers you go down, there’s another one that yournhaven’t really tapped.  And writingrnis an effort, and sometimes a failed effort as well to get down to the bottomrnlayer. 

Question: Who arernyour favorite authors? 

Lionel Shriver: I’m a big fan of Edith Wharton. rnI love the way she writes elegantly without being fussy.  She writes beautiful sentences, they’rernwell constructed and balanced.  Butrnthey’re never just beautiful sentences. rnThey always say something. rnTo me that’s the essence of a beautiful sentence.  It’s not just pretty in its language,rnbut it gets at something, some kind of truth or essence that is revelatory andrnshe embodies that for me.  She isrnalso a great storyteller and writes wonderful characters. 

I’m also a huge fan ofrnRichard Yates.  I feel I have arnreal affinity with his perspective on the world, which is a little bit sour,rnbut also has a sense of humor.  AndrnI love the way he writes characters– in a lot of ways he’s taking the Mickeyrnout of them, as they’d say in Britain. rnThat is, he’s exposing them. rnBut he’s exposing them in a way that is short of ridicule.  Yates still has a tenderness toward hisrncharacters.  Even characters thatrnare being used a bit for laughs, or maybe shallow or pretentious, but there’srnalways something poignant about that and sympathetic.  And I like that. rnI’m not sure I always managed to pull that off into my own work, butrnwhen I do I really feel I’ve achieved something because as much as it’srnsatisfying to expose people’s foibles, it’s most satisfying to do that in a wayrnthat is empathetic with those foibles which sees them from the inside and howrnthey’ve come about and has an element of forgiveness in the portrait. 

Question: Do yournhave a specific approach to the work of writing? 

Lionel Shriver: There’s nothing occult about what I do.  It is very ordinary. rnI’m often asked at literary festivals, for example, how many hours a dayrndo you write?  And when do yournwrite?  And do you have a setrnnumber of pages that you write?  Andrnthe answer is, it varies enormously. rnI used to be much more insecure about my capacity to generate arnmanuscript and so when I first started out, and I’m sure a lot of writers willrnrecognize this, I started at a particular time, I had to write three pages arnday.  Now I’m not like that atrnall.  Maybe some day I’ll writernnothing, and another day maybe I’ll write 10 pages.  The secret is just to keep at it and put in the time and itrndoesn’t matter what the time of day is. rnIt’s a very work-a-day, plodding profession, especially writingrnbooks.  You’re better off notrnwaiting for inspiration.  I findrninspiration is something that you demand of yourself that will arrive in duerncourse if you sit in front of a computer long enough, you just have tornconcentrate. 

So, I get up in the morning,rnhave a whacking big cup of coffee, read the newspaper.  I have to say, that’s an important partrnof my life is keeping up with current events.  I am especially attentive to the little articles.  I think for a writer, those littlernsidebar articles are the jewels of the news day; tiny little incidents that arernusually on a more individual level and not like peace talks in the MiddlernEast.  And I love those.  And I’m somebody who fanatically clipsrnthose articles.  I’ve got whole filesrnfull of bits and pieces from newspaper. rn

And then I answer my email,rnwhich takes an atrocious amount of time, and finally I get down to work.  I guess on an advice level, the onlyrnother advice I dish out is that the one counterpoint, important part of my dayrnis getting a lot of exercise at the end of it because it’s such sedentaryrnprofession that otherwise it’s enervating when you get enough exercise, itrnkeeps your energy levels up.  So,rnanybody out there who writes should also learn to run.  

Question: Do yournever use ideas from those news clippings?

Lionel Shriver: Occasionally.  I don’t usernthem as much as I think I will, or I should.  I think they more function along the lines of giving me arnsense of narrative possibility. rnAll the weird little plots. rnI mean, reality is stranger than you could ever make up and I like to bernreminded of that. 

Question: How yournbalance the reality of current events with the fiction in your novels?

Lionel Shriver: I do try to write novels that speak to reality in some way.  I’m a little leery of writingrnexclusively issues books, though I’ve certainly been guilty of that.  I have strong political opinions, oftenrnstrong conflicted political opinions. rnAnd it’s when I feel conflicted that I know that I’ve got a good subject.  It’s important not to let fictionrndegenerate into polemic when writing about healthcare, I don’t want it to soundrnlike an op-ed.  And it’s alsornimportant that even if you are writing about an issues and it is an issue thatrnyou have strong partisan feelings about it.  That there’s enough air in the narrative to allow for thosernother points of view that maybe you feel as if you disagree with, but you havernto give them voice if you’re going to explore any kind of an issue with somerndimension. 

As far as I’m concerned, thernonly thing that makes politics important is the way in which these issuesrntranslate into individually lived lives. rnSo, it has to have implications for single people, what happens to themrnand what they feel.  So, in writingrnabout healthcare, I’m not talking about what tax exemptions I’m advocating, butrnyou know what is it like to receive an EOB, or Explanation of Benefits, and tryrnto go through all those papers and figure out what checks your supposed tornwrite and where.  You know, this isrnwhat people are going through and it even has a comic aspect and that couldrnmake for good fiction.  But again,rnyou do have to be careful.  Yourndon’t want to write a novel what becomes obsolete, you know, that becomes anrnanachronism, that’s the biggest problem with speaking to the immediate momentrnbecause the moment is always moving. rnSo, if you speak to this moment, and for that matter, it takes two tornthree years to write a book to get it out, so if you speak to the immediaternmoment too specifically, it’s already moved on by the time the book isrnpublished and in trying to be super relevant, you make yourselfrnirrelevant. 

Therefore, it’s important torntry to keep consciously addressing issues that never go away.  So in my latest book, I’m talking aboutrnlarger matters of illness and what it’s like to face death, what kind of anrneffect a diagnosis of a terminal illness for one spouse has on a marriage.  Does it bring you closer becausernsuddenly your time together is so precious, or does it alienate you because yournare living in completely different universes?  And I think the answer is a little bit of both.  But these deep human things aboutrnmarriage, and family and friendship and the experience of birth or death aren’trngoing anywhere.  They are timeless,rnand if you don’t have some of those elements in your story, you’re going tornbecome dated in short order. 

Question: What isrnyour process for creating characters?

Lionel Shriver: Naturally I draw on people whom I know and any fiction writer is alwaysrndrawing on his or herself.  And Irnhave to admit that in latter years I have gotten dead bored with myself.  I believe, by the way, that this is thernhealthiest development in my character. rnI think becoming bored with yourself is some kind of Zen achievement.  But what I really enjoy about thernprocess of constructing characters is -- and I tend to go for more compositesrnof taking little bits and pieces from here and there-- is the way in whichrngradually they do achieve and integrity and identity of their own, which isrnquite apart from whoever might have helped to inspire them is when, even in myrnown head that character has an independence of the sources that contributed tornthat character.  And that's when arnbook starts to become fun. I can start seeing them, I can hear them talking in myrnhead, and it's all an illusion, but it's a delightful illusion.  

Question: Do yourrncharacters follow you around?

Lionel Shriver: Oh yes.  They definitelyrnstay with me.  And the funny thingrnis I get easily offended on their accounts.  I really don't like it when a reviewer insults them.  I do believe that this experience of,rn"How dare you say that about Shep?" is distinct from, "How dornyou say that about me?" as an author.  It is a protective sensation, my little wards.  Right?  It's like, okay, they are defenseless; you don't go forrnthem.  You go for me.  Go ahead, insult me as much as you want,rnbut you leave Shep alone. rnRight?  He's a good man;rnHe’s a lot nicer than I am. 

Question: One ofrnyour novels that was based on your family created a rift. Do you regret writingrnit?

Lionel Shriver: No I don’t.  But maybe Irnshould.  My fifth novel, much to myrndespair because it was not the intention, injured more than one member of myrnfamily because they took some of the portraits to heart.  Which were not always kind, Irnconfess.  I regret the hurt.  I don’t regret the book, because I likernthe book.  And maybe that makes merna jerk because, of course, the book came with the hurt.  You couldn’t have the book without therninjuries, so I guess that is a price that I am still willing to have paid, butrnanyone else who decides to write fiction that is so-called loosely based onrnreal people should take it under advisement, that it is a dangerous thing to dornand that’s a well polled quote because you will get into trouble for everythingrnyou keep the same and you will get into trouble for everything that yournchange.  You know? 

And the other killer is, andrnthis is something that I remarked on in this article, you can be incrediblyrncomplementary in fiction.  You canrnplay to what this real person likes about themselves for pages and pages, butrnif you insert as a single line that hits a nerve and violates what that personrnwants to think of themselves, that’s all they’ll remember.  That is all they will remember.  You know?  And that’s when you really can’t win.  And these perceived insults arernforever.  That’s one of the deadlyrnthings about the written world. rnIt’s out there, you can’t take it back. 

And you know, it is a bookrnthat the whole plot is made up, people’s professions are made up, it starts outrnwith both parents are dead and at writing, my parents were alive.  And as we speak, my parents are stillrnalive; knock wood, they will stay that way as long as possible.  So, I did, I changed all kinds ofrnthings, but it didn’t make any difference. I have a feeling that with thernbenefit of hindsight there might have been a few lines that I could havernchanged.  You know those singlernlines I’m talking about?  I thinkrnthey could have been slightly altered and made really no significant artisticrnsacrifice and have done less harm. rnAnd I’m sorry about that.

Question: Whatrnprompted your novel “So Much for That”?

Lionel Shriver: It came down from a newspaper article and then a big personal event inrnmy life.  The newspaper article wasrnin The New York Times, detailing the fact that not only was the leading causernof bankruptcy in the United States medical bills, but that the majority ofrnthese people who were going bankrupt from medical bills had healthrninsurance.  And that flooredrnme.  I mean, how is this?  What is the bloody insurance forrnthen?  And I thought, that reallyrnsounds like a novel.  And thenrnfollowing on that, then why don’t you write it?

I was interested in medicalrnissues in general thought especially because in late 2006, I lost one of myrnvery closest friends.  We had knownrneach other for 25 years.  She wasrnjust barely older than I and she was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma,rnwhen she was only 50 years old. rnAnd she lived a year and three months after her diagnosis.  Her prognosis was only about a year, sornthat despite $2 million being lavished on her treatment, she died pretty muchrnon schedule.  Mesothelioma isrnalmost always caused by exposure to asbestos, and my friend was a metal smith,rnand she would have worked with materials that were laced with asbestos,rnespecially back when she was at arts school.  And since I was also trained as a metal smith, I may havernbeen exposed to the same thing. rnThat’s frankly, not something that I look at very hard because I justrndon’t want it to be.  I don’t wantrnthat disease.  But it was veryrnupsetting to watch her go through that, it was upsetting to watch herrndeteriorate, to see her go through a period of extreme hopefulness when a CATrnscan came in and it looked as though the cancer was retreating and then tornwatch her plummet again. 

And what was especiallyrndifficult about that experience and this is something I duplicate in the book,rnis my friend Terry, refused to admit she was dying.  And so my character Gwyneth who is another one of thosernloosely based characters that ended up achieving an independence of my friendrnalso refuses to admit she is dying. rnAnd I think it had to do with this business of regarding cancer as arnwar, as a battle that you try to win so that you use an arsenal of drugs atrnyour disposal.  You know, all thatrnlanguage of the military.  I’m veryrnuncomfortable with this way of thinking. rnI don’t think illness has anything to do with battle.  I don’t like the way that puts the onusrnon the patient to win.  Right?  Because when you lose implicitly, it’srnyour fault.  It’s a failure ofrnwill.  My character embraces thisrnway of thinking and therefore will not concede that she is dying because shernassociates dying with personal defeat.  And she is a person who has a ferocious will.  And therefore she believes that if shernapplies that will to her cancer, she can overcome it. 

This wouldn’t seem tornmatter, except that it puts the people who love her in a very uncomfortablernposition.  And this certainlyrnhappened to me in relation to my friend, Terry.  It injects an artifice in the relationship because whenrnsomebody’s dying, it’s a pretty big elephant in the room.  And if you can’t mention it, like oh byrnthe way, I have a feeling you’re not going to be here next year, it’s a bigrnthing not to be able to talk about it. rnIt also precludes any number of conversations.  I know that her own husband was never able to talk to herrnabout, what was next for him after she died because they could never acknowledgernthe fact that she was going to die. rnSo, he was never able to discuss his own grief to address his futurernwithout her.  And all of us wererndenied the opportunity to have that, perhaps mythical, I don’t know if it’srnpossible to have this, but that last conversation. You know, the saying of lastrnthings.  I have this notion; Irnnursed this idea that when you acknowledge with someone that you are neverrngoing to speak again, that maybe it is possible to say some things that yournwould never say in any other circumstance. 

To me, that’s the onernopportunity that a terminal illness presents you that getting run over by a busrndoesn’t.  You know, there’s nornwarning with the bus, you’re there one moment and you step off the curb and you’rerngone.  And you don’t get to putrnyour affairs in order, and the most important of those affairs is yourrnrelationships to other people.  Andrnthen you leave – you know, you leave a spouse behind grieving not only thatrnyou’re not there, but that you just had a fight. 

I like this idea that yourncan use disease as an opportunity to set the record straight.  And to maybe breakdown certainrnemotional barriers that will always stay up unless you strip away the pretensernthat there’s always some later time when you can redress things.  That’s the way we relate to each otherrnalways.  We always assume that wernwill see each other again, and even people that we know perfectly well we’llrnnever see again barring some bizarre coincidence, we tend to say, “See yournlater.”  You know?  And I would have liked to have thatrnlast conversation with my friend, Terry. 

In the book, Gwyneth isrnrefusing to admit that she is dying, denies that last conversation to herrnfamily and friends until finally, her husband breaks her down and rams therndoctor’s prognosis down her throat until she concedes, no this is not a war, itrnhas never been a fight.  Dying isrnnot losing.  It’s just going tornhappen and this is an opportunity to say goodbye.  And therefore she is finally able to say goodbye in a wayrnthat is fittingly elegant.  She isrnan elegant woman and understated and dry.

Question: What, inrnyour opinion, is wrong with the U.S. health care system?

Lionel Shriver: In thernUnited States, our answer to the finitude of healthcare resources is to spendrndisproportionate amounts on single people with very good coverage and then tornspend practically nothing on people who don’t have the coverage or essentiallyrnwe discriminate according to how much people earned.  Or just how unlucky people are because you can actually earnrna fair amount and just happen to have a health insurance plan that drops yournwhen you get sick, or be very well-off and not be able to keep working becausernyou’re sick and then your health insurance lapses.  So, it’s no exclusively an issue of the uninsured and thernpoor. 

Nevertheless, a single-payerrnsystem like the one in Britain, and I’ve lived in Britain, so I’ve experiencedrna national health service, is capable of making some of the hard decision thatrnwe make on a commercial Darwinian level in the United States in the UK they arernmuch more systematic about it and I think much more fair.  There’s an organization calledrnNICE.  Not very appropriatelyrnchristened, The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, and theyrnare particularly responsible for looking at drugs and various therapies and howrnmuch they cost, and assessing how much more extra life these drugs or theserntherapies are going to get for an individual patient.  And if they cost too much for too little life, then thoserndrugs and therapies are simply not approved.  The NHS will not pay for them.  Now, there’s a brutality to that.  NICE is not very popular in the UK, but I believe that thatrnkind of an organization and those kinds of determinations are necessaryrnevils.  I, personally, do not wantrnmillions of dollars spent on my living maybe a couple of extra and probablyrnmiserable months.  And by the way,rnI would add that that’s easy for me to say now because I’m in good health.  And I may feel differently later.  But I would think that it would bernquite reasonable and maybe merciful for a higher power were I in that situationrnto say, “Okay Lionel, now you’ve changed your mind.  You’re desperate to stay alive, but no, we’re not going to spendrn$2 million on a couple of extra months for you.  You know, you’re not worth it.”  And certainly from this vantage point of a healthy, rationalrnperson, I don’t think a couple months of my life are worth $2 million ofrnsomeone else’s money.

Question: What keepsrnyou up at night?

Lionel Shriver: You know, that’s funny. rnThis sounds so petty.  But,rnwhat kept me up last night was, I just moved house in London and my study isrnjust a pile of cartons and I’m tortured where to put the desk.  So, last night I was rearrangingrnfurniture in my head.  So, it goesrnfrom the mundanities like that. rnActually most writers would probably not see that as mundane.  The orientation of a desk is bizarrelyrnimportant.  

Otherwise, I don’trnknow.  The state of my marriage ifrnI recently had a fight, or what to do in chapter three.  I solve a lot of fictional questions inrnmy sleep.  That is, I’ll go tornsleep thinking about something and wake up with the answer.  I find dreams and the state ofrnunconsciousness very creatively useful. 

Recorded on March 12, 2010