Mixed Media #28...Lionel Shriver

silence is not an option

Lionel Shriver, 2006. <https://creativecommon .org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons (attrib. walnut whippet from Hull, UK).

You know, I'd be happy to have a hard time thinking of a topic to write a column on because I'm not enraged about anything. That would be great.

Lionel Shriver, from the podcast The Unspeakable with Meghan Daum, November 2024.

THIS IS A bit of a spoiler, but everything I’m about to say can be reduced to two main points:

1. Lionel Shriver is one of my favourite writers;

2. Lionel Shriver speaks her mind, even when it would be a lot easier for her if she didn’t.

Shriver possesses a rare courage, one that puts other public figures who work in the arts to shame, and some of them have dealt with their shame by demonising her. This kind of bullying is commonplace nowadays, where some of our most lucid thinkers are punished just for expressing opinions that fall outside certain narrow orthodoxies, but the brightest and the best will not be quieted, and Shriver is undoubtedly one of those.