The first ever story collection from the inimitable Lionel Shriver‘Genius’ Stylist‘Phenomenal’ Observer‘Brilliant’ The TimesIn her first ever story collection, Lionel Shriver illuminates one of the modern age’s most enduring obsessions: property.A woman creates a deeply personal wedding present for her best friend; a thirty-something son refuses to leave home; a middle-aged man subjugated by service to his elderly father discovers that the last place you should finally assert yourself is airport security.This landmark publication explores the idea of «property» in both senses of the word: real estate, and stuff. Immensely readable, it showcases the biting insight that has made Lionel Shriver one of the most acclaimed authors of our time.
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Lionel Shriver. Property: A Collection
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
The Standing Chandelier
A NOVELLA. In bottomless gratitude, to Jeff and Sue.This is not about you
The Self-Seeding Sycamore
Domestic Terrorism
The Royal Male
Exchange Rates
Kilifi Creek
Repossession
The ChapStick
Negative Equity
Vermin
Paradise to Perdition
The Subletter
A NOVELLA
About the Author
ALSO BY LIONEL SHRIVER
Отрывок из книги
one of the three people who make
my life worth living.
.....
Weston’s subsequent non sequitur was not premeditated. Nevertheless, he needed to investigate the question pressing in on him: Is there something wrong here, have we all along been doing something wrong? So after she related how last week during a tutorial her student kept emitting such evil farts (“there must be an intermediate state in physics that’s halfway between a gas and a solid”) that she had to keep excusing herself for a bathroom break or drink of water just to get out of the room, he said, “Oh, right. I asked Paige to marry me last night.”
Dropping that bombshell was an observational experiment. He watched her face. The face that he loved—that he either loved innocuously or loved dishonestly. Whatever was happening in that face, it was complicated. Which meant something in itself. And her pause implied a reckoning. Did one reckon with good news?
