Sample
  • The Mandibles

  • A Family, 2029-2047
  • By: Lionel Shriver
  • Narrated by: George Newbern
  • Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (60 ratings)

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The Mandibles  By  cover art

The Mandibles

By: Lionel Shriver
Narrated by: George Newbern
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Publisher's summary

THE BRILLIANT NEW NOVEL FROM THE ORANGE PRIZE-WINNING AUTHOR OF WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN.

‘Distinctly chilling’ Independent

‘Unsettling as it is entertaining’ Financial Times

‘It's scaring the hell out of me’ Tracy Chevalier

In this eerily prophetic novel from the Orange Prize-winning author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, a once-wealthy family faces the prospect of ruin. This apocalypse is financial – the dollar is in meltdown, America’s national debt far beyond repayment.

It is 2029.

The Mandibles have been counting on a sizable fortune filtering down when their 97-year-old patriarch dies, but now their inheritance is turned to ash. Each family member must contend with disappointment, but also — as the effects of the downturn start to hit — the challenge of sheer survival.

Recently affluent Avery is petulant that she can’t buy olive oil, while her sister Florence is forced to absorb strays into her increasingly cramped household. As their father Carter fumes at having to care for his demented stepmother now that a nursing home is too expensive, his sister Nollie, an expat author, returns from abroad at 73 to a country that’s unrecognizable.

Perhaps only Florence’s oddball teenage son Willing, an economics autodidact, can save this formerly august American family from the streets…

©2016 Lionel Shriver (P)2016 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

What listeners say about The Mandibles

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Lionel é a melhor

Espero com ansiedade o aparecimento de cada título da Lionel na Audible. Amo todos. Este é inesquecível. Um futuro surpreendente. Muito bem gravado.

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So prescient

a nearly prophetic description of our current situation. Insightful account of the path to hyper inflation that we are on we are on with government controlled fiat money. How sound money which is backed by hard work (energy and time) like gold like gold (and Bitcoin if you ask me) is the base layer of any civilization. destroy the money by inflating it to finance government largess, will destroy the society in the end.

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Imaginative and engrossing

This was an imaginative and engrossing book. I hope it doesn’t come to pass, but who knows? The author deserves high praise for warning us of what may be ahead.

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Insightful, Original Vision of the Future

A thought provoking story of how institutions may collapse but communities and families can survive

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What a great read!

Loved the story. Shriver has a gift for portraying economic climate through human interactions and his storytelling has a welcoming humour beneath the harshness of the situations.

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Destopian, boring, endless - non liable for return

It took forever to get to the exiting part. The book ended before the exiting part. The characters are unremarkable, the story plausible but uninspiring. You will be so happy when its over. Worst of all, its not possible to return this title.

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1 person found this helpful