Game Control - Lionel Shriver

I am a huge fan of Lionel Shriver. I consider ‘We need to talk about Kevin’ an incredible novel and have had the privilege of hearing Shriver read the short story A Convalescent Ego by Richard Yates at a Literary Festival a couple of years back. All in all a good start to enjoying this novel. Game Control was first published in 1994, then republished in 2009, and had minimal commercial success. Howwever I feel that’s quite surprising. It has a unique subject matter – demography and population control - with AIDS thrown in for good measure. There’s intellectual sparring and brilliantly flawed characters. However, I felt the ending didn’t quite match the edge contained within the rest of the novel. Shriver always offers a hefty dose of harsh reality and that’s what makes her work so strong. Game Control provides some great themes and writing but just falls short of Shriver’s best.