![]() Clearly, one lure of fiction is the possibility of exploring alternate scenarios and what-might-have-beens. The titular big brother of Shriver's novel was inspired by her own older brother, who died from complications of obesity in 2009 at age 55, leaving the writer with nagging questions about whether she could have saved him. ![]() More recently, So Much for That (2010) offered a scathing indictment of the U.S. Her controversial breakthrough novel, We Need To Talk About Kevin (2003), considered the possible connection between maternal ambivalence and a Columbine-like high school murder. Shriver, an American-born journalist and novelist who has long lived in the U.K., is drawn to hot-button topics like snackers are to potato chips. In this book, diet protein shakes are thicker than both. She comes at this huge subject through a sister torn between saving her morbidly obese older brother, who has "buried himself in himself," and an unsympathetic, belligerently fit husband - a situation that raises questions about divided loyalties and whether blood is thicker than water. ![]() Lionel Shriver tackles a whopper of an issue in her new novel, Big Brother: obesity and the emotional connection between weight, consumption, guilt and control. ![]() ![]() Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Big Brother Author Lionel Shriver ![]()
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