Review | Lionel Shriver disappoints with flimsy plot and thinly drawn characters in new novella

The Standing Chandelier
by Lionel Shriver
The Borough Press

Best known for her 2005 bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, Lionel Shriver also has a reputation as a no-nonsense commentator. Her 2016 speech on cultural appropriation at the Brisbane Writers Festival was a welcome rejoinder to the fatuous notion that certain aspects of culture belong only to some people, and cannot be used or adapted by others. (Any cultural proscription that would have prevented The Beatles, Abba or Led Zeppelin must be the purest nonsense.)

We Need to Talk About Kevin – which takes a mother’s perspective of raising a child who turns out to be a mass murderer, shooting up the school cafeteria – heralded a writer prepared to tackle troubling subjects and enter difficult emotional areas.

Shriver’s latest book, The Standing Chandelier, demonstrates none of these qualities. It’s a novella com­prising a mere 120 pages, of somewhat large type, and probably doesn’t exceed 30,000 words, which isn’t even many for a novella.

The story is an examination of a friendship between a middle-aged man and woman, Weston and Jillian, who are old friends and ex-partners. Weston’s girlfriend, Paige, now complicates the friendship. Paige dislikes Jillian and feels threatened by her long-standing relationship with Weston.

This is a good premise: the way a woman can feel threat­ened by other women is worth examining. The politics of giving gifts (the couple receive an extravagant present from Jillian on their engagement) can also be interesting (and was studied at length by celebrated French sociologist Marcel Mauss, among others). But what scuppers The Standing Chandelier is its inconsequentiality.