Lionel Shriver Infuriates the Literary World

The latest novel by Lionel Shriver, literary darling turned literary-world scourge, doesn’t come out until mid-February, and it’s already polarizing. “Her worst book, by a wide margin,” according to an early review of “A Better Life” in Kirkus, a trade journal. “It’s a mess,” agreed Publishers Weekly. Meanwhile, a starred review in Library Journal praised its “deft prose” noting, “This is a book readers will be eager to talk about.”