Informe Lionel Shriver

AUTHOR Lionel Shriver
PUBLISHER Publisher: Harper


Introduction: A novel encompassing 3 lethal diseases: cancer, a rare degenerative disease that no one’s ever heard of, and old age. Predominately, it is a “cancer novel.” It also serves to rail against the U.S. medical system and the “system” in general. Not cheery.

Text: Shep Knacker, who built a very successful“handyman” business and has socked away a good bit of money, has long desired to walk away from it all and live the rest of his life in some Third-World country where one can live on a few dollars a day. At first his gorgeous wife, Glynis, was behind him; they would take annual trips to research different countries as possible future locations. But Glynis always found something wrong, and the yearsslipped by. First, there was the birth of their daughter, then 10 years later the birth of their son – two excuses for “waiting for the right moment.” In the meantime, Glynis has pretty much gone off the youthful idea of an “Afterlife,” as Shep has always referred to his dream, and their friends tend to laugh about it – all except Shep’s co-worker and best friend Jackson.

The daughter has longsince moved away from home (though Shep still helps support her), and the son, Zach, is now a Junior in high school. Shep has had enough. Eight years before he sold his profitable business in preparation for the move. In the meantime, he’s continued to work as an employee in his own company under the new owner, an ex-employee of Shep’s – and a dumb slacker at that – who came into some money.This new boss, Randy, does everything slipshod and Shep has mostly had to work on complaints from unhappy customers. His only consolation is that he has got to work with his friend Jackson, but the day comes when he can wait no longer. His wife is 50 and he is in his late forties.

So Shep buys 3 one-way tickets to Pembra, an island off the coast of Africa where he had once gone as a kid withthis missionary father, an island he has fond memories of. He presents the tickets to Gynis and says he going in one week whether or not she and their son come along. He very much wants them to come, too, but if not, so be it. Glynis’s response is a firm no, to which she adds, “I’m afraid I’ll need your health insurance.”

Unknown to Shep, Glynis has just been diagnosed with cancer. And it’sa nasty cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Surgery will be needed, and chemo, the works. And that means his health insurance will be needed, and that means he cannot quit his job or he would lose the insurance. The dream of the “Afterlife” is quashed again. For above all, Shep is a good and responsible guy who would never leave his family in the lurch. In fact, without complaining, hehas always shouldered the cost of the entire family. Not only his immediate family, but his aging father and his free-loader sister.

So begins the battle against Glynis’s cancer, which takes us through the rest of the book. The new owner of Shep’s business has gone for a particularly cheap health care plan, which doesn’t help. Fortunately, Shep has all that money he saved for the “Afterlife,”but little by little it begins to dwindle. He can hardly make sense of the bills, they pour in so fast. Nightly bookkeeping of medical bills becomes a full-time job. Shep never flags from his duty. He pays the bills and he tends to Glynis’s every need– eventually giving enemas, cleaning her ass, feeding her, etc. We like Shep. Glynis, however, is not so likeable. She would rather everyoneelse be as miserable as she is. Knowing asbestos caused her cancer, she at first tries to blame her husband for having used some product in his line of work that contained the lethal substance, but later she remembers that in her metalsmith class at art school there was a product that contained asbestos. She is filled with rage and wants to sue, to make them pay.

And there is Shep’s dad,...