So Much for That: A Novel [Paperback]

Shep Knacker has long saved for the Afterlife, an idyllic retreat in the Third World where his nest egg can last forever. Exasperated that his wife, Glynis, has concocted endless excuses why it's never the right time to go, Shep finally announces he's leaving for a Tanzanian island, with or without her. Yet Glynis has some news of her own: she's deathly ill. Shep numbly puts his dream aside, while his nest egg is steadily devastated by staggering bills that their health insurance only partially covers. Astonishingly, illness not only strains their marriage but saves it.

From acclaimedNew York Timesbestselling author Lionel Shriver comes a searing, ruthlessly honest novel. Brimming with unexpected tenderness and dry humor, it presses the question: How much is one life worth?

The rare novel that will shake and change you. With these wholly realistic and sympathetic characters, [Shriver] makes us consider the most existential questions of our lives and the dreadful calculus of modern health care in this country&. Its a bitter pill, indeed, but take it if you can.A visceral and deeply affecting story, a story about how illness affects peoples relationships, and how their efforts to grapple with mortality reshape the arcs of their lives&. [Shrivers] understanding of her people is so intimate, so unsentimental&it lofts these characters permanently into the readers imagination.A delicious novel. . . . So Much for That, Lionel Shrivers improbably feel-good black comedy, is the rare book that can make suicide, near-bankruptcy and terminal cancer so engaging you cant wait to turn the page. . . . Provocative, entertaining-and so very timely.Shriver writes in precise, dynamic prose&. If anyones going to perk up the often-limp niceness of the womens novel its Shriver, who has no use for earth mothers or noble victims&. The climax offers more fun, vengeful satisfaction and pure tenderness than any treatise on the future of healthcare.[An] l³*