New Release: Mania
By Lionel Shriver (April 2024)
America, alternative 2011, the Mental Parity (MP) movement has taken over.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Well, this saying simply won’t do anymore. Not only are the words ‘smart’ and ‘dumb’ banned, but in this alt-America, the concept of intellectual hierarchy itself is deemed void and offensive. Social hysteria, it seems, has now turned its eye towards smart people.
Our protagonist, Pearson, is an English lecturer, and provides the eyes through which we see the story unfold. The MP movement starts as so many others do: the twisting of words (no longer a smartphone, just a phone), the axing of TV shows that do not align with the agenda (goodbye Who Wants to be a Millionaire), and the upheaval of the recruitment process. Whilst most others, including her best friend, are swept along with the crows, Pearson does not buy into it. Her rebellious spirit stems from her childhood, in which she ran away from home after being brought up as a Jehovah’s Witness.
The rise of the MP movement is both realistic, and chilling. Spanning from 2011-2027, we see how the movement snowballs. This is the root of the book - the destructive nature of blind obedience. It is claimed that everyone’s brains work in their own way (true), and that some people just process things differently (also true), but that because of this, exams should be scrapped, and there is no such thing as being bad at something. So, if you simply can’t fail tests in this alt-America, you get yourself untrained doctors and nurses, people who can’t drive properly, etc, etc. And, toying with the ‘equality’ versus ‘equality of opportunity’ debate, there are no requirements for jobs because requiring good grades or experience is now discriminatory.
What Shriver does is show us how easily extreme ideas can make their way into policy - all it takes is time, censorship, and compliance. Scaring people into compliance through labelling them as offensive and/or cancelling them is the best way to go, and Shriver conveys this dynamic through Pearson’s relationship with her best friend, Emory. The two women find themselves on opposite sides of the culture war. Emory is a radio personality, and takes the path of pretending (or is she?) to go along with the agenda to keep herself safe, as opposed to Pearson, who would rather be vocal. The book does well in examining how complex it is when the chasm of politics begins to separate friends. The ideological mouth-piecing in this book is not very subtle.
Mania is made more interesting through its references to real world events, such as Covid, Brexit, and Biden being elected. These bring a sense of dystopian realism. But that doesn’t change the fact that the book, unfortunately, feels like one long rant. It simply felt as though we, the readers, were being talked at, rather than to (you get the feeling that this is a release for Shriver’s on disquiet of today’s world). The characters are unlikeable, perhaps because they are realistic, and the story is moved forward by the hysteria of the movement.
Overall, it is an interesting observation of how current ideologies rely on compliance and paralysis of opinion to escalate, but the execution is underdeveloped. That being said, I did enjoy the concept of the book. Outspoken, satirical, and made of marmite, Mania is sure to ruffle some feathers, regardless of which end of the political spectrum you sit at.
Mania is out on 11th April 2024
Thank you to Borough Press and HarperCollins for the proof.