The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver

The Post-Birthday World
by Lionel Shriver
Pub. Date: March 2007
Genre: Fiction
528pp

Synopsis from BN.com:
Children's book illustrator Irina McGovern enjoys a quiet and settled life in London with her partner, fellow American expatriate Lawrence Trainer, a smart, loyal, disciplined intellectual at a prestigious think tank. To their small circle of friends, their relationship is rock solid. Until the night Irina unaccountably finds herself dying to kiss another man: their old friend from South London, the stylish, extravagant, passionate top-ranking snooker player Ramsey Acton. The decision to give in to temptation will have consequences for her career, her relationships with family and friends, and perhaps most importantly the texture of her daily life.

Hinging on a single kiss, this enchanting work of fiction depicts Irina's alternating futures with two men temperamentally worlds apart yet equally honorable. With which true love Irina is better off is neither obvious nor easy to determine, but Shriver's exploration of the two destinies is memorable and gripping. Poignant and deeply honest, written with the subtlety and wit that are the hallmarks of Shriver's work, The Post-Birthday World appeals to the what-if in us all.

Why I Picked It:
Though it was difficult to read, I grew to love, We Need to Talk About Kevin. Lionel Shriver's writing style is a bit dry, careful, detailed, intelligent, so fiercely unapologetic and insightful, after a few failed starts, I couldn't help but become completely immersed in that story. I kept looking at this one, not sure if I was willing to put forth the effort, but then said to hell with it and started reading.

My Review:
I tried to like this book. I really really wanted to, but I couldn't quite get there. Like I said above, you have to be a patient and diligent reader of Lionel Shriver to appreciate her style. She's very detailed, her characters precise, complicated, always stricken with a huge dilemna, and, at least as I can tell from just reading these two books, always presented in an imaginative way that never unravels quite the way you'd expect. With WNTTAK, it was through letters to an estranged spouse.... This book follows the paths of choices made and not made.

Irina has a birthday dinner with a male friend, Ramsey, and after a few compelling drinks and a hit from a joint, the awakening throws her previously perfect 10-year relationship with Lawrence into a tailspin. Does she stay with reliable Lawrence, or take a chance with Ramsey?

I'm not sure if we're talking about love her or just lust. The first third of the book is sizing up a "marriage" -- the routines couples fall into, the expectations of familiarity. And the mystique of finding a connection, a spark, an obsession (sex) with someone completely different. Who do you choose? What do you do? What if you took a chance? It took a while for me to realize that we were switching back and forth between Irina's new "Post-Birthday World" of options. Oh, it's so very Sliding Doors... without the sympathetic characters and overall appeal.

I'm not sure why both men wanted Irina so much. She seems so boring, unexcitable, strictly a passenger in her own life. Ramsey seems pretty limited - apparently, he's good looking, he likes his sport, but there isn't much beneath the surface besides a deep, passionate ability to perform in bed. Lawrence is steady and reliable, a tad boring, but not in a bad way... just the intellectual silent type, who only says what he means and means what he says, but always wanting to please and limits his own behaviors and actions to produce only what he knows to be a successful outcome.

There were so many passages that I could've done without, like the pages describing a disappointing autoerotic event and accompanying dissertation on masturbation. Her reference over and over to having a lesbian fantasy. The pages and pages on sex, wondering of the other had sexual fantasies and why do we need to have that word "f**king" thrown in over and over? It isn't written in a romantic way. It's quite cold. I wasn't cheering for Irina, and I struggled to finish the book.

Again, I felt grateful for having read all of the Leminy Snicket, Series of Unfortunate Events books. If you've read those, you know how the author always throws in vocabulary words and then defines them. Words like ersatz and penultimate... No, you would not be incorrect to label Lionel Shriver as wordy, but I also like to think she balances her need to imbue her somewhat stuffy characters with intelligence as well as weakness. It was nice that I didn't have to run for the Websters, but the characters, though perhaps intelligent, drove me nuts.

I'm not sure I will try another Lionel Shriver book. They are difficult, but, at least in this case, there was never that hook that keeps me turning the pages. I finished this one because I was hoping to would redeem itself somewhere along the way.