What do You think about A Perfectly Good Family (2007)?
Read the "get to know the author" (for want of a better phrase) section at the end of this book -- one of the best I've ever read ("Ah Wan Ow!" love that) -- and you'll know immediately that this is an author you want to read. It makes her seem sharp and prickly and headstrong and clever (but with a heart). You know what her fiction will be like."A Perfectly Good Family" is a terrific read. Three siblings jockey over an inheritance while living in the same house, each falling back into family-ingrained ways of relating to each other. It's clever, precise, meticulously well-written and, well, much better than its rather unexciting-sounding premise and other reviewers here would lead you to believe. Shriver doesn't trot out gimmicks and cliches and "that could never happen" plots. She writes about real people; that's refreshing, like a good TV series about realistic relationships instead of cartoon-character desperate housewives or people running round lost on an island for four years or people with fantastic abilities. I think she's well on the way to being one of the best writers out there. She writes very, very well, almost deceptively so, without being showy.This isn't a "great" book. It's a very good, little book. Give it a chance.
—Tim
Did I just give 3 stars to a book by Lionel Shriver? I did. I finished this book, because there are always good ideas in her books, and the text is a trove of verbal nuggets. BUT IMO Shriver was very much finding her voice in this novel (which preceded the brilliant "We Need To Talk About Kevin") and it was a little awkward for me, the diehard fan, to witness Shriver's less steady writing. The subject and themes and plot felt cheaper (e.g. mass-market fiction) than what I'm accustomed to with Shriver, but the book was lifted by her raw talent, which was there, just not anywhere close to as polished and crisp and taut as in "Kevin" and "Post-Birthday."Also, the ending caught me off guard. I was reading on my Kindle, and I now realize that for some reason the electronic version had a double copy of the book. So, I thought I was "50%" of the way through the book, when in fact I was at the end. Not Shriver's fault, but mentally I very much thought I was still in the middle, and so, when I began to suspect that she was tying together all the loose ends, I was caught off guard. And the ending itself -- regardless of the Kindle glitch -- was pretty crappy IMO, very unsatisfying, not credible, too neat.
—Lauren
Lionel Shriver writes the way a champion boxer fights—with gloves held high and a series of quick, tough jabs.A Perfectly Good Family, first published in the US and the UK in 1996, is being released in Australia for the first time. It’s the story of three children who have been willed a grand Reconstruction mansion by their parents. Each heir wants the house for different reasons, but none can afford to purchase it from the others outright. With the mathematical precision Shriver is known for, the scene is set for uneasy alliances and calculated betrayals. Corlis, the only daughter, is torn between her meek younger brother and the bullying eldest.It’s difficult to speak about A Perfectly Good Family without considering Shriver’s recent success. She won the 2005 Orange Prize for We Need to Talk About Kevin, a study of how maternal ambivalence contributed to a school shooting. She has also taken on competitiveness in marriage, population control, infidelity, and terrorism. These are heavy subjects that make the theme of sibling rivalry in A Perfectly Good Family pale. Shriver is nothing if not courageous.She is also a master of psychological undercurrent. It doesn’t matter that we never like any of these characters. Shriver manages to compellingly capture the nature of family dynamics with all the tradeoffs, bitterness, ancient wounds, and buried love. The situation between Corlis and her brothers builds word by word—expert jabs by the prize-fighter—until the reader is left craving not a particular solution but any solution at all.
—Adair
