This is The Reason interview with Nick Gillespie, a libertarian podcast where I go deep with

the artists, entrepreneurs, politicians, and visionaries who are defining the 21st century.

Today's guest is Lionel Shriver, the provocative writer best known for novels like,

we need to talk about Kevin, the mandibles, and most recently, mania.

We talked a few days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk,

an event whose lasting significance she cautioned against over-interpreting.

We want tragedies to mean something, she said, and maybe they don't.

Shriver offers cutting critiques of Gen Z. Socialists, Tucker Carlson, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump,

who she says is the void of any firm principles.

In a New York Times opage, a decade ago, she thanked Rand Paul for nominally refurbishing libertarianism

so that it's halfway respectable, but now she says the term has become too

tarnished as far right. She tells me she is one of those sad people who occasionally

still says she would like a smaller government, and she isn't interested in massive social

control. Yet Shriver herself seems to be growing more conservative, making dismissive comments about

the trans thing, and arguing against large-scale immigration, which is also the topic of her

next novel, titled A Better Life and Do Out Early Next Year.

This Q&A was recorded live at an event in New York City.

Here is the reason interview with Lionel Shriver.

Lionel Shriver, thanks for talking to reason.

I wouldn't be anywhere else this evening.

All right. That's a faint praise, perhaps, but singular. So thank you very much.

Let's start first by doing a little bit of biography. We, you and I were going to talk at this event a year ago, but you were recovering from

...