Hello and welcome to Everything Else, the FT Culture Podcast. I'm Gris.

And I'm Al. In this special episode, we have a new short story by Lionel Shriver.

Lionel Shriver is best known for her 2003 novel. We Need to Talk About Kevin, which was made into a great film with

Tilda Swinton and Ezra Miller. She's not afraid of tackling big contemporary topics such as

obesity, the US healthcare system and obviously maternal ambivalence. Her latest novel, The Mandibles,

a family 2029 to 2047, is a kind of devastating

dystopian tale about an American family who lose everything in an economic crash and a

force to resort to all means possible to survive in the world.

Lionel came in to read The Mandibles, a coda, which is an original short story, inspired by the

news of 2017, and written for the Word Factory and New Writing North for Citizen,

the new story London's first festival exploring citizenship, which takes place on November the 10th to the 12th.

Normal service will resume on Monday when our next episode is out.

We'll be discussing true crime, including the podcast, Dirty John, and the Netflix series American Vandal.

And Al will be talking to comedian Roshin Connity.

You don't know what you've got till it's gone, or The Mandibles, a Coda.

23rd September, 2047.

My dearest Tamrand. I ran into Graydon recently, and he'd said that you'd move to

Kinluck Burvey, nearly as far north on the Scottish mainland as one can get. His explanation, that you'd

fled there because it was too far and too cold for any but the heartiest and most

ambitious migrants seemed improbably unkind. Despite our many arguments, I did always find you

tender-hearted, and I'm sure there's a more positive reason for your far-flung location.

I'm hoping that the Royal Mail can get this letter to you within six weeks or so.

...