My review of Lionel Shriver’s novel, So Much for That, runs in today’s Chicago Sun-Times. Here’s the first paragraph:

In We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver axed at the angst of self-absorbed parenting while spinning the unspoken psychological grindstone that sharpens school violence. In her severely underrated novel The Post-Birthday World, Shriver expertly established two parallel universes that exposed the delicate fissures buried within a seemingly grounded relationship. One would logically assume Shriver to be the ideal social novelist to fire up the Flammenwerfer for a blistering assault on the ongoing health care crisis.

You can also listen to my 2007 interview with Shriver on The Bat Segundo Show. While I was extremely disappointed by the latest novel, I still believe that Shriver has enough talent to recapture the momentum contained within her last three novels, which are all worth reading.