I read Lionel Shriver’s 2005 Orange-prize winning book, We Need To Talk About Kevin, a few months ago, and I thought then that Ms. Shriver was a talented if sometimes self-indulgent writer. Her latest novel, So Much For That, confirmed that opinion.

So Much For That tells the story of the death-by-cancer of Glynnis Knacker, mostly from the point of view of her husband, Shep Knacker. Glynnis does not go gently. She’s a selfish you-know-what before she is diagnosed with mesothelioma, and cancer does not soften her hard edges nor her sharp tongue. Shep, on the other hand, compares himself to water, “adaptive, easily manipulated, and prone to taking the path of least resistance, . . . yielding, biddable, and readily trapped.” As the novel opens, Shep is about to take a step that he has been planning for all of his life: he is about to leave the rat race for a remote island paradise off the coast of Africa to live out the rest of his life in peace and freedom. Glynnis’s cancer diagnosis changes the plan completely.

The novel is about the U.S. health care system and its many flaws. It’s self-indulgence derives from the inclusion of a character, Shep’s best friend Jackson, whose main purpose is to voice all of the political ranting of an American author who lives in London and who sees the American systems of government, free enterprise, and especially healthcare as a travesties and offenses to the human race as a whole. Jackson lays it on pretty thick, and I can only conclude that the author had a lot to say about politics and healthcare and chose to use Jackson as a vehicle to say it. It gets a little old.

The story itself, though, especially the characters’ interactions with one another, is good. It’s sad to watch the financial ruin of a hard-working man who does everything he can to save his wife or to at least see her die with some dignity and peace. The doctors and the hospitals don’t seem to be of much help is reaching those goals. Some of the observations in the book are commonplace. People will do and spend almost anything to retain some hope of recovering from a serious illness. Cancer is horrible. Fighting cancer with chemotherapy is a matter of giving oneself enough poison to kill the cancer and hoping that the poison doesn’t kill the rest of you. Death and dying are gruesome and hellish, and the process does not always, or even usually, bring out the best in people.

More often, though, Ms. Shriver shows more insight into people and circumstances and relationships than I could have expected. Glynnis, the character who is dying, does not become a different person, more loving and kind and spiritual, but she does change. At first, she becomes more self-centered than she was before her cancer diagnosis, and later, much later, she becomes, if not peaceful, at least resigned and a little bit willing to see the needs of those who are close to her. Glynnis’s friends are, at first, attentive and supportive, offering to do “whatever I can to help.” Slowly, over the course of a year with cancer, the friends fade out of the picture. Only one neighbor, Linda-who-sells-Amway, a lady that Glynnis didn’t even like very much before the cancer, continues to accompany Glynnis to chemotherapy and bring tempting food and visit and be available. This desertion by friends leads to an interesting insight via Shep’s dad, Gabriel, who is a Presbyterian minister:

Shep: “People . . . her friends, even immediate family. They’ve –lots of them have deserted her. I’m embarrassed for them And this disappearing act so many folks have pulled, well, it hurts her feelings, even if she pretends she’s glad to be left alone. I’m very discouraged. I wonder if people have always been so–weak. Disloyal. Spineless.”

Gabriel: “Christians accept a duty to care for the sick. Most of my parishioners took that commitment seriously. Your secular friends only have their own consciences to prod them, and that’s not always enough. There’s no substitute for deeply held beliefs, son. They call you to your finest self. Tending the sick is hard work, and it’s not always pretty; I don’t need tell you that now. When you’re relying on some flimsy notion that coming by with a casserole would be thoughtful . . . that tuna bake may not make it to the oven.”

I would say, instead of “deeply held beliefs,” that there’s no substitute for the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and empowerment. But either way, this insight is amazing from the pen of an author who describes herself as a “poster girl for the secular” who “revile(s) religions of any description.” Of course, the Presbyterian minister in the story later lapses into atheism, and I will admit that Christians don’t always get it right in regard to caring for the sick and dying. But I would much rather depend on my church family to be there for me during my suffering times than a group of drinking buddies or even well-meaning coworkers and secular friends.

To summarize, I would say that, while Lionel Shriver is a good writer with much psychological insight into the motivations and justifications of people’s behavior, she does have an agenda. And it shows a little too much in So Much For That. I recommend We Need To Talk About Kevin, and if that’s a favorite with you, you might also enjoy reading So Much For That. Both books are a little heavy on the (married but graphic) sexual content, probably as a substitute for God, who gets short shrift in these books.

The Other Side of the Bridge is Mary Lawson’s second published novel, and it made me want to read her first, called Crow Lake. That’s a fair compliment.

It was the characters in The Other Side of the Bridge that made the book. The way the characters interacted and the author’s insight into their motivations reminded me of Marilynne Robinson’s twin novels, Gilead and Home. And that comparison is high praise indeed.

The plot is somewhat similar to Gilead and Home. The Other SIde of the Bridge has a prodigal son, Jake, best beloved by his mother, scorned as a useless wastrel by his father. Arthur, the older son, is his father’s right hand, the dependable, steady oldest son. Jake is a lot like the Biblical Jacob, always playing an angle, restless, never quite trustworthy. However, the story is told from Arthur’s point of view. And although the reader is 95% sure that Jake is the deadbeat that his father believes him to be, there’s that five percent of doubt or hope or wondering about what might have been. What if the father in the story had tempered the mother’s favoritism and indulgence with more loving discipline?What if the mother had been able to see that her son was headed for disaster and could have corrected him more effectively.? What if both Arthur and Jake had gone away to war? Would the army have changed them? In good ways or bad?

I think these same thoughts about my own children. What if we had not decided to homeschool them? Would they be different? Would their life choices be better or worse? What if we had not missed the deadline for Computer Guru Son to apply for a scholarship to the college he thought he wanted to attend? Would he be graduating from that college now instead of stuck in a holding pattern, unable to decide what he wants to do with his life? Would Unnamed Daughter have listened or rebelled if we had forbade her to be friends with that young man who turned out to be a heartbreaker just as we thought he might be? Are all of my children stronger because we allowed them more freedom than some homeschooling Christian families I know, or should we have protected them more and for a longer time?

I don’t know. I never will know. The Other Side of the Bridge is a book about choices and about how the decisions we make change us. It does feature the story of Arthur and Jake, but also the story of Ian Christopherson, a young man on the brink of adulthood who has his own decisions to make, relationships to resolve, and forgiveness to give. Part of the story is told from Ian’s point of view as he works on Arthur Deen’s farm and comes to an understanding of some of the family dynamics and history. As you can see from this post, I found the book thought-provoking.