Big Brother: A Novel

by Lionel Shriver

Overview

“Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger. . . . With honesty, precision and humour, she conveys all the boredom and exhilaration of weight loss, along with its tendency to threaten the people around you.” —Guardian

From the New York Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver, a striking novel about siblings, marriage, and obesity

When Pandora picks up her older brother Edison at the Iowa airport, she doesn't recognize him. In the four years since she last saw him, the once slim, hip New York jazz pianist has gained hundreds of pounds. What happened? And it's not just the weight. Edison breaks her husband Fletcher's handcrafted furniture, makes overkill breakfasts for the family, and entices her stepson not only to forgo college but to drop out of high school. After Edison has more than overstayed his welcome, Fletcher delivers his wife an ultimatum: it's him or me. But which loyalty is paramount, that of a wife or a sister? For without Pandora's support, surely Edison will eat himself into an early grave.

Rich with Shriver's distinctive wit and ferocious energy, Big Brother is about fat—an issue both social and excruciatingly personal. It asks just how much we are obligated to help members of our families, and whether it's ever possible to save loved ones from themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061458606
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/10/2014
Series:	P.S.
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Lionel Shriver has published many novels, a collection of essays, and a column in the Spectator since 2017, and her journalism has been featured in publications including Harper’s, the London Times, UnHerd, and The Wall Street Journal, among many others. A multiply best-selling writer and winner of the UK’s Orange Prize, she lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.

Hometown:

Brooklyn, New York, and London, England

Date of Birth:

May 18, 1957

Place of Birth:

Gastonia, North Carolina

Education:

B.A., Barnard College of Columbia University, 1978; M.F.A. in Fiction Writing, Columbia University, 1982

Website:

http://www.talkaboutkevin.com

Editorial Reviews

“Big Brother is vintage Shriver - observant, unsettling, funny, but also, as Pandora admits, ‘Very, very sad.’” - Miami Herald
“As a writer, Shriver’s talents are many: She’s especially skilled at playing with readers’s reflexes for sympathy and revulsion, never letting us get too comfortable with whatever firm understanding we think we have of a character.” - Washington Post
“The diet - the story of a heroically undertaken significant change - is pretty nearly irresistible. But what really powers this story, an outsize look at the most basic of human activities, eating, is a search for the definition, and appreciation, of ‘ordinary life.’” - Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Shriver is brilliant on the novel shock that is hunger. . . . Most of all, though, there’s her glorious, fearless, almost fanatically hard-working prose.” - Guardian
“Shriver is wonderful at the things she is always wonderful at. Pace and plot. . . . Psychology.” - Independent
“Her [Shriver’s] best work--Big Brother is her twelfth novel--presents characters so fully formed that they inhabit her ideas rather than trumpet them.” - New Republic
“(A) delicious, highly readable novel . . . (which) raises challenging questions about how much a loving person can give to another without sacrificing his or her own well-being.” - People, People Pick (4 Stars)
“A searing, addictive novel about the power and limitations of food, family, success, and desire. Shriver examines America’s weight obsession with both razor-sharp insight and compassion.” - J. Courtney Sullivan, author of Maine and Commencement
“The ever-caustic Shriver has great fun at the expense of crash diets and a host of other sacred pop-culture, er, cows. Politically correct it’s not, but Big Brother finds the funny - and the pathos - in fat.” - USA Today
“Would I recommend Big Brother? Absolutely. It confronts the touchy subject of American lard exuberantly and intelligently; it makes you think about what you put in your mouth and why.” - Bloomberg
“Pandora is a masterly creation.” - New York Times Book Review
“The latest compelling, humane and bleakly comic novel from the author of We Need to Talk about Kevin.” - Evening Standard (London)
“A gutsy, heartfelt novel” - Sunday Times (London)
“A surprising sledgehammer of a novel” - The Times (London)
“[Shriver] has a knack for conveying subtle shifts in family dynamics. . . . Ms Shriver offers some sage observations. . . . Yet her main gift as a novelist is a talent for coolly nailing down uncomfortable realities.” - The Economist
“Lionel Shriver’s Big Brother has the muscle to overpower its readers. It is a conversation piece of impressive heft.” - New York Times
“A great plot setup that presents an array of targets for Shriver to obliterate with her knife-sharp prose.” - The Rumpus
“The moving (and shocking) finale will have you thinking about the ‘byzantine emotional mathematics’ we all put ourselves through when overwhelmed with family responsibilities.” - Oprah.com
“The fellowship of Lionel Shriver fanatics is about to grow larger, so to speak. Big Brother, a tragicomic meditation on family and food, may be her best book yet.” - Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story
“An intelligent meditation on food, guilt, and the real (and imagined) debts we owe the ones we love.” - Publishers Weekly
“Shriver brilliantly explores the strength of sibling bonds versus the often more fragile ties of marriage.” - Booklist

From the Publisher