After absolutely loving
Lionel Shriver’s novels We Need To Talk About Kevin and The Post-Birthday
World, I guess I should have seen the disappointment of her novel So Much For
That coming from a mile away. While it is not a mindset I have myself, I’ve
begun to see Shriver as the cynical voice of reason we reluctantly need in our
lives. Her novels ask really tough questions whose answers might destroy us, or
at least help us rebuild after whatever notion we held so dear has crumbled. We
Need To Talk About Kevin brought up the horrifying implications of
unconditional love between parent and child. In The Post-Birthday World, she
questioned the idea of a completely happy ending in life, or the idea of good
and bad decisions. But in So Much For That, she tries her hand at a comedy, and
she doesn’t really have a handle on it. Not putting her talents to good use,
the story she tells is an awkward one, whose jokes and gags fall flat, or are
even uncomfortable to sit through, and not in a positive way. Her focus this
time is on a newly rich Shep Knacker, who has just sold his company for a
million dollars. He has dreamed of escaping to a tropical paradise, known
hilariuosuly as “the afterlife”, with or without his nagging family, which
includes his wife Glynis, who has just been diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare
cancer which might be caused by the work that Shep did on homes. Forced to stay
home and care for his somewhat awful wife, his precious nest egg is soon
depleted from the constant medical bills; his only saving grace is his friend
Jackson, who has just as many problems as he does. There are not many memorable scenes, with the
exception of Jackson getting penis enlargement surgery and trying to hide it
from his wife, so the reader is left with a lot of humor that is hit or miss,
with an ending that, I’ve got to admit, is pretty heartwarming, even if it is
bitter. I’d say read her previous two novel if you haven’t, they are a better
introduction than this.
Rating: 3/5
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