the post birthday world by lionel shriver

'Do you kiss the guy or not?' Plot introduction

You are presented with Irina's two departing futures, and the end of the novel throws Irina's original quandary right back in your lap'. Instead, like We Need to Talk About Kevin before it, Post-Birthday World is what I call participatory fiction. the Bad Man, which would be flat and leave the reader with nothing to do. In her 2008 postscript to the book Shriver explains that this structure 'allows me to explore the implications, large and small, of whom we choose to love' She goes on 'I was not interested in writing a novel about the Good Man vs. One stream following Irina after she succumbs to the temptation, the other as she resists. After this common first chapter the narrative splits, with two chapter 2s, and chapter 3s etc. At the end of the first chapter the protagonist Irina, in a happy long-term relationship, is tempted to kiss another man.

The book follows a 'parallel-universe' structure. Sarah Lyall in The New York Times explains that Shriver found this decision the hardest in her life and goes on to quote her 'There was more than one moment that I could have gone either way, I know what it’s like to be on the knife edge and to have this inkling that whichever way you go it’s going to have huge implications.' It was the potential consequences of this decision which inspired the story. The Post-Birthday World is a novel by Lionel Shriver published in 2007, some four years after her previous novel, the award-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin.Īs pointed out by Carrie O'Grady in The Guardian, it contains many autobiographical elements: the main protagonist Irina is of Russian descent, so speaks the language Shriver studied at university, and they are both Americans living in London and have both ended secure long-term relationships having fallen for 'more creative' types.

The post birthday world by lionel shriver