It Should Have Been Over By Now, But It Isn't. Lionel Shriver On The Unending Culture Wars

The Unspeakeasy With Meghan Daum

Meghan Daum

Society & Culture

4.7 • 855 Ratings

🗓️ 8 May 2023

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on the podcast, returning guest Lionel Shriver talks about her latest book, Abominations: Selected Essays From A Career Of Courting Self-Destruction. A collection of her writings from outlets like The Spectator, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal, the book also contains some previously unpublished pieces a well as speeches and other public addresses, including a eulogy for her brother. Lionel is perhaps the consummate "thought criminal," and in this conversation, she talks with Meghan about how she came to assume this mantle (hint: she supported Brexit) and what frustrates her most about culture war discourse. They discuss the Covid lockdown policies, the state of the literary arts, the new gender movement, and the differences between America and the U.K. when it comes to fears about nuanced positions being "weaponized by the other side." They also consider the "am I canceled or am I just paranoid?" conundrum and wonder how much longer the culture wars can really go on. Finally, Lionel reflects on how perceptions of our own happiness change over time and how, if she could send a message to her younger self, it would be, "you're not as miserable as you think."

In the bonus portion for paying subscribers, Lionel stays overtime to talk about Meghan's second favorite subject: end-of-life options. Her last novel, Should We Stay Or Should We Go, took a darkly funny look at this subject by considering a dozen parallel universes for a couple who planned to kill themselves when they turned 80. Lionel and Meghan pick up on where their conversation left off from Lionel's last visit to the podcast and talk about their feelings about their own deaths and what it means to enter old age without children or close family. Uplifting stuff!

Guest Bio:

Lionel Shriver is a columnist for The Specator and the author, most recently, of Abominations: Selected Essays From A Career Of Courting Self-Destruction. Her fiction includes The Mandibles, Property, 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, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harper's, and the London Times, and she currently writes a regular column for The Spectator in the UK. She lives in London and Brooklyn, NY.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the unspeakable podcast. I'm your host, Megan Down. Before I introduce my guest,
0:09.3	Lionel Shriver, just a really quick reminder that we have an unspeak-easy retreat coming up in June
0:17.5	in Austin, Texas. The Minneapolis retreat is going on right now. We speak this week. But the next
0:25.3	one will be June 24th and 25th. That is a weekend daytime only retreat. And you can go to
0:33.0	the unspeakasy.com to find out about that. That will probably be the last one until next fall.
0:40.0	We are going to have a fancy luxury retreat in the Poconos October 23rd through 26th.
0:46.8	You can find out about that. You can also go to the online community and join that. It's much more
0:52.1	affordable than a retreat. and it's actually awesome.
0:55.6	So everything is to be found at the unspeak easy.com. And as I think I mentioned last week,
1:01.5	if you are a man and you're feeling left out, because this is a women's only venture at this point,
1:08.2	the thing you can do is support us so we can grow and offer unspeakasy for all
1:14.9	events, because that is something I would like to do down the road. Okay, my returning guest is
1:22.3	author Lionel Shriver. Linald was last here about two years ago talking about her novel, should we stay or
1:29.5	should we go, which took a really dark and funny look at end-of-life options by considering a dozen
1:37.5	parallel universes for a couple who, in an effort to avoid prolonged and undignified
1:44.0	demises planned to kill themselves when they turned 80.
1:48.1	Lionel is best known for her novels. She's published, I think, close to 20 of them, including the
1:53.5	prize-winning, bestselling. We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was told from the point of view of a mother
1:59.2	whose young son carries out a school massacre.
2:03.3	Lionel is here this week to talk about her most recent book, which is not a novel.
2:07.6	It's called Abominations. It's a collection of her writings from outlets like The Spectator,
2:13.0	the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal. It contains some previously unpublished pieces
	...

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