Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The United States is
Speaker 1: in a unique position because it is hoisted on the
Speaker 1: petard of its own rhetoric. We're a nation of immigrants,
Speaker 1: and therefore there's some kind of follow on from that
Speaker 1: which I don't believe is valid. That we therefore have
Speaker 1: no right to keep anybody out.
Speaker 2: Lionel Schreiver, whose latest novel is about immigration, do you
Speaker 2: think that your fiction has been changed by your immersion
Speaker 2: in social and political issues.
Speaker 1: I'm interested in the big issues of my day. If
Speaker 1: I'm going to participate in the world as opposed to
Speaker 1: be an artist and write these rarefied pretty sentences, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a choice, and I've made my choice.
Speaker 2: From Bloomberg Weekend, this is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm
Speaker 2: Michelle Hussein. More than twenty years ago, Lionel Shreiver made
Speaker 2: her name as a novelist with a book called We
Speaker 2: Need to Talk About Kevin. It was a portrait of
Speaker 2: motherhood and a marriage alongside a school shooting, and that combination.
Speaker 2: That portrait won its author awards and accolades. Since then,
Speaker 2: Shriver has often drawn on contemporary issues in her fiction,
Speaker 2: but perhaps never more so than in her latest a
Speaker 2: book called A Better Life. It's set in New York
Speaker 2: in that period of the Biden administration when there were
Speaker 2: large numbers of immigrants crossing the United States southern border,
Speaker 2: and that's where our conversation begins with the plot of
Speaker 2: her new book, but we also go back in time
Speaker 2: through America's story and her own. She's the daughter of
Speaker 2: a pastor descended from immigrants, who has chosen to be
Speaker 2: one herself. For much of her adult life. For decades,
Speaker 2: the UK was her home. Then she left for Portugal
Speaker 2: for reasons that include immigration. As a companion to this episode,
Speaker 2: I do recommend the written version on Bloomberg dot Com
Speaker 2: because that's where you'll find my notes and added context
Speaker 2: on the topics we discuss. First, though, to the story
Speaker 2: of A Better Life.
Speaker 1: Well, I first got the idea for this book watching
Speaker 1: then New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced on the
Speaker 1: news that the City of New York was planning to
Speaker 1: start a program whereby in order to deal with this
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of migrants coming into New York during
Speaker 1: the Biden administration, they would pay New Yorkers to put
Speaker 1: migrants in their spare bedrooms is. It turns out this
Speaker 1: program never happened, but it did in my book. So
Speaker 1: I just thought, that's that's a brilliant setup. After all,
Speaker 1: what could go wrong?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, as I think you're hinting at, plenty does
Speaker 2: in the book. So there's the woman Gloria whose home
Speaker 2: it is Martin, who is the woman from Honduras who
Speaker 2: she takes in. And then there's Gloria's son Nico, who
Speaker 2: has his own complexities in his life. But is your
Speaker 2: main character really more soon.
Speaker 1: Than the midle? I mean, it's all seen through the
Speaker 1: eyes of this twenty six year old layabout. He has
Speaker 1: an engineering degree but has done absolutely nothing with it.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to be anything, he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: do anything. He aspires to nothing. His life has a
Speaker 1: kind of purity to it, and ultimately, of course he
Speaker 1: doesn't want to be grown up?
Speaker 2: Right And what are you thinking of real people? Is
Speaker 2: that how you work when it comes to your crafty?
Speaker 1: I'm certainly thinking of real people people, you know, well,
Speaker 1: the many parents who are housing children in their twenties
Speaker 1: and sometimes into their thirties, who don't do anything and
Speaker 1: who don't support themselves and are really into a kind
Speaker 1: of extended adolescence. And there are reasons for that that
Speaker 1: are not exclusively Oh, they're just lazy or have no ambition.
Speaker 1: It's sometimes you know, the cost of housing here for example.
Speaker 2: In the UK, and in the UK absolutely.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, both the likes of London in New York,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of young adults who cannot afford
Speaker 1: to have their own homes, even to rent their own homes.
Speaker 1: It's not a mean portrait, but in this case it's
Speaker 1: it's a young man who simply boycotting adulthood. And what
Speaker 1: was interesting about writing from that perspective is how sympathetic
Speaker 1: I found myself. I mean, it's daunting to face responsibility
Speaker 1: for your wife. It's frightening. It comes with the threat
Speaker 1: of failure. You know, it's a lot easier and cleaner
Speaker 1: to just decide you don't want anything, and that way
Speaker 1: you can't fail to get it.
Speaker 2: But the key dynamic in the book is between Nico
Speaker 2: and other members of his family and the migrants who
Speaker 2: end up living in their house, not just the original one,
Speaker 2: but her brother and others. And I'm going to quote
Speaker 2: from a bit because I think that this is about
Speaker 2: three quarters of the way through the book, when there's
Speaker 2: a whole group who I have now arrived in a
Speaker 2: staying put in the house in Brooklyn, that is Nico's
Speaker 2: mother's home. Following the arrival of the collide Quintet, Nico
Speaker 2: finally appreciated what it meant to feel emasculated. Sure, these
Speaker 2: skinheads would do literate. They had phones which they used
Speaker 2: to stream porn, but which were otherwise he sensed instruments
Speaker 2: for the giving and taking of orders. That is, their
Speaker 2: phones connected them to the material world in which something
Speaker 2: might happen or be made to happen, other than the
Speaker 2: delivery of a corn removal kit from Amazon. Out Here
Speaker 2: in the wild, wacky universe of three dimensions, the pandaeios
Speaker 2: did whatever they wanted. They took what they wanted, including
Speaker 2: a nicely done up five bedroom house in Ditmas Park.
Speaker 2: It is a metaphor, isn't it for America? I think
Speaker 2: you've said that explicitly. It's about immigrants taking over America.
Speaker 1: Yes, uh, Biden let in at least ten million immigrants,
Speaker 1: and we're not sure it could be as much as twenty.
Speaker 1: Because you only keep track of the people who want
Speaker 1: to be kept track up and the United States is
Speaker 1: in a unique position because it is being hoist on
Speaker 1: the pitard of its own rhetoric. That is, we're a
Speaker 1: nation of immigrants, and therefore there's some kind of foul
Speaker 1: on from that which I don't believe is valid. That
Speaker 1: we therefore have no right to keep anybody out, because
Speaker 1: that would be pulling up the drawbridge, as the expression
Speaker 1: has it.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's obviously been part of America's message to
Speaker 2: the world. As I read the book, I was thinking
Speaker 2: about Reagan's farewell speech where he talks about the shining
Speaker 2: city on the Hill and how America is going to
Speaker 2: be a beacon, a magnet for all who must have
Speaker 2: freedom from people from the lost places who are hurtling
Speaker 2: through the darkness towards home. So it's been a sort
Speaker 2: it's been a kind of Rhetorica I'm talking about, and
Speaker 2: it's helped make America rich. Right, it continues to be
Speaker 2: the most powerful, richest country in the world.
Speaker 1: Yes, but don't you don't become rich necessarily. In the
Speaker 1: UK knows this as well, by wetting in a lot
Speaker 1: of people who start out poor, are not well educated,
Speaker 1: have very few skills, and are going to be net
Speaker 1: takers on your social welfare system.
Speaker 2: Although economies need all kinds of jobs, care workers, low
Speaker 2: income workers.
Speaker 1: Yes, both the Danes and the Dutch have both done
Speaker 1: extensive research on particular nationalities and how much on average
Speaker 1: they either contribute or cost, and there is a huge disparity.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would advocate a more discriminating immigration system
Speaker 1: in the best sense of the word, that is, be choosy.
Speaker 1: Let in people who are going to contribute more money
Speaker 1: than they take and who are very likely to assimilate,
Speaker 1: to either speak the language already or learn the language
Speaker 1: and join the national project. And I would like to
Speaker 1: see both the US and the UK be selective about
Speaker 1: who they let in. I'm sometimes mistaken for somebody who's
Speaker 1: just anti immigration, but I'm not at all. I'm an immigrant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first for many years, and now the Portugal.
Speaker 2: We will talk in more detail about your experience in
Speaker 2: the UK. Lanel, I definitely want to come back to that,
Speaker 2: but I would say right now, the UK's immigration system
Speaker 2: is incredibly choosy. It gives visas to the people it wants.
Speaker 2: But let's just go back to the Okay, let's go
Speaker 2: back to the book. Right first of all, because.
Speaker 1: I'm a sucker for talking about this subject matter, so
Speaker 1: I can be easily distracted into just talking.
Speaker 2: The subject matter is at the heart of the book.
Speaker 2: And I'm struck by how upsetting and enraging the scenes
Speaker 2: that you have in the book are, because there is
Speaker 2: a takeover of the house and more. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to give it all away. And I have to tell
Speaker 2: you that the book featured in my dreams. I dreamt
Speaker 2: that my sons were inviting loads of their friends into
Speaker 2: the house without asking my and I had this image
Speaker 2: in my dream of this long line of boys their
Speaker 2: age walking in who hadn't invited, and I woke up
Speaker 2: feeling quite shocked. And then I thought, this book has
Speaker 2: made it into my dreams or my nightmares. So the
Speaker 2: picture you paint is very evocative. But the situation in
Speaker 2: the US has completely changed. Now we're speaking early in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, and the latest figures show a decline
Speaker 2: in international immigration to the US.
Speaker 1: Yes, I should clarify I'm not a big Trump supporter.
Speaker 1: That's another point that a lot of people miss.
Speaker 2: But you didn't vote for me the time.
Speaker 1: I didn't, I didn't vote for anybody.
Speaker 2: You didn't vote for anyone last time. But before that
Speaker 2: you've been done. I voted for Biden and before that
Speaker 2: Hillary Clinton.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have been a Democrat. I feel a little
Speaker 1: distanced from the party now and I could see myself
Speaker 1: switching to being an independent. I think that's probably more
Speaker 1: accurately reflects my political position. But you know, there were
Speaker 1: a lot of Americans who did not vote for either
Speaker 1: candidate in this last presidential election. It's just like, I
Speaker 1: can't stand either one of them.
Speaker 2: But you approve of the end to it just happening
Speaker 2: at the southern border.
Speaker 1: It was out of control. It has put enormous pressure
Speaker 1: on especially the social care systems of cities, and I
Speaker 1: really concerned myself with New York, which was inundated with
Speaker 1: more people than it could handle. New York has an
Speaker 1: odd and uniquely self destructive policy of promising a right
Speaker 1: to shelter to anyone who arrives, and you almost wonder
Speaker 1: why anyone pays rent there.
Speaker 2: I mean, overall, in terms of welfare and social provision
Speaker 2: in the United States, it is the case as a
Speaker 2: whole that immigrants pay more in taxes than receive in benefits.
Speaker 1: Maybe as a whole, but that's I guess that's what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: They experience locally that the.
Speaker 1: People who were coming across the border illegally are overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: the kind of migrant that is going to cost the
Speaker 1: US taxpayer money over their lifetime.
Speaker 2: And now that situation is over. So now when you
Speaker 2: look at the latest statistics where not only has there
Speaker 2: been a big decline in immigration, but the overall population
Speaker 2: of the US may start to decline this year. Is
Speaker 2: that a good thing or do you have concerns about
Speaker 2: what it means for economic growth and for the sustainability
Speaker 2: of systems into the future.
Speaker 1: I think it's a good thing on a sociological level
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of the United States
Speaker 1: in spite of the fact that you know, we talk
Speaker 1: up the many waves of migrants that we have absorbed,
Speaker 1: and the United States is very proud of us, and
Speaker 1: I think would be migrants. Yes, not my parents, but
Speaker 1: my great grandparents on both sides came from Germany. What
Speaker 1: people seem underaware of is that after absorbing many millions
Speaker 1: of people, almost all of whom were from Europe, so
Speaker 1: there was a certain civilizational continuity there. The US shut
Speaker 1: down immigration in nineteen twenty four, let practically nobody in
Speaker 1: and that lasted until nineteen sixty five. I think that
Speaker 1: period of letting nobody in, not kicking anyone out right,
Speaker 1: was crucial for knitting together a coherent, unified American population.
Speaker 1: That was the kind of successful melding, you know, the
Speaker 1: old a successful melting pot into which I was born,
Speaker 1: and so that when I was born, nobody was hyphenating
Speaker 1: their identity. We were just Americans.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And again that was part of the projection of
Speaker 2: America to the world. Come here and you can be Americans.
Speaker 1: That was historically what you're and I'm just saying so
Speaker 1: we have taken in so many but.
Speaker 2: The big difference is demographically. Demographically is that American women
Speaker 2: were having babies in that time. And that's the implication
Speaker 2: of the current statistics, because nowhere in the world have
Speaker 2: countries really been able to manage a population decline without immigration,
Speaker 2: because you need to replace your workers, You need people
Speaker 2: who are going to consume as well as be part
Speaker 2: of the labor market.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably the strongest argument for a permissive
Speaker 1: kind of open border immigration policy, but I don't think
Speaker 1: it should be the only consideration. First off, the ideal
Speaker 1: solution to this problem is to somehow induce a cultural
Speaker 1: awakening whereby people have more children.
Speaker 2: Uh, no ways achieved that.
Speaker 1: I am skeptical about that, but that's the ideal.
Speaker 2: But that's why I'm wondering if you have any concerns
Speaker 2: about that idea of immigration decline and therefore population decline,
Speaker 2: because it does have serious economic considerations into the future.
Speaker 1: Yes, but there are serious social and political consequences to
Speaker 1: wedding many people in from very different cultures, and I
Speaker 1: think that there should be a middle ground there wet
Speaker 1: in some people, but preferably give some advantages to the
Speaker 1: more culturally compatible.
Speaker 2: Across the southern border, largely Christian. I mean, they're coming
Speaker 2: from culture America's projected its power for so long, the
Speaker 2: Monroe doctrine, now the Donro doctrine, that this is our
Speaker 2: sphere of influence.
Speaker 1: I think that the overwhelmingly Hispanic immigrants coming up through
Speaker 1: the border during the Biden administration, and it actually just
Speaker 1: historically for the last fifty years, I have a higher
Speaker 1: likelihood of ultimately assimilating, especially over multiple generations.
Speaker 2: But you didn't like them, I mean you just said
Speaker 2: you didn't like them coming in those.
Speaker 1: Like massive illegal immigration. I am all for legal immigration, okay,
Speaker 1: and the United States would actually do better to loosen
Speaker 1: up on the legal side. I think we should let
Speaker 1: more people in legally and make it easier and cheaper.
Speaker 2: Okay. You've so often in your books there are observations
Speaker 2: about America which are so striking, you know, so moving,
Speaker 2: And I was thinking more about the mandibles A portrait
Speaker 2: of a family in an America of the future, where
Speaker 2: you have these scenes in that book that are about
Speaker 2: government excess and overreach that souldiers budging into people's homes,
Speaker 2: wanton destruction. It made me wonder what you think of
Speaker 2: the tactics of ice now in early twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: I don't like the tactics. It doesn't mean that I
Speaker 1: think we shouldn't deport anybody. I don't think that the
Speaker 1: two shootings in Minneapolis look to me to be justifiable.
Speaker 1: I think that the whole look of the operation has
Speaker 1: been overly militarized. They don't look like police, they look
Speaker 1: like the army. I think it's been too aggressive. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, this whole business of having sanctuary cities
Speaker 1: and even sanctuary states means that the authorities are not
Speaker 1: cooperating with the federal law enforcement, and since ICE is
Speaker 1: prioritizing going after criminal aliens of these sanctuary localities have
Speaker 1: made that much harder.
Speaker 2: A lot of the people in ICE detention are not criminals.
Speaker 1: Well, one of the reasons they are ending up arresting
Speaker 1: more what's known as the collateral damage of people who
Speaker 1: don't have criminal records, is because they can't just go
Speaker 1: to the jails when these people are being let out
Speaker 1: and put them into ICE custody. So I think that
Speaker 1: the sanctuary city policy is backfiring in those qualities' own terms,
Speaker 1: because if they wanted to protect people who didn't have
Speaker 1: criminal records from deportation, then they're doing the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: There are other aspects of ICE tactics beyond the use
Speaker 2: of force. There's things like going into a Hyundai car
Speaker 2: plant and rounding up loads of South Koreans from a
Speaker 2: country which is investing hundreds of millions of dollars.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't defend the way these things are done.
Speaker 2: And by the way the case you like the result
Speaker 2: of it. That that's the complexity I'm interested.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't like the fact that they shot to Pope, but.
Speaker 2: You like the fact that overall these are the tax
Speaker 2: sticks that have resulted in a massive decline in immigration.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I do like is that these deportations,
Speaker 1: which by the way, are still fewer than Obama per
Speaker 1: year deported, and he didn't get any stick at tall.
Speaker 1: These have just been very high profile. What I do
Speaker 1: like is they're getting a lot of press, and therefore
Speaker 1: it's basically sending out an advertisement to the rest of
Speaker 1: the world that no, immigration to the United States is not,
Speaker 1: after all a human right, and do not expect to
Speaker 1: arrive in the US, especially by illegal means, or even
Speaker 1: by overstaying your visa, and think that you can stay
Speaker 1: there forever without our permission. So it's sending a signal
Speaker 1: which is effective, it's working.
Speaker 2: You were born in North Carolina. Yes, Why did you
Speaker 2: leave the US as a young woman back in the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been about right. That's right. I
Speaker 1: spent most of my adulthood outside of the country.
Speaker 2: Fourty years maybe fourty years away. Yeah, what was the cause?
Speaker 1: I just had an appetite for adventure. The United States
Speaker 1: seemed like a known quantity, which is probably ignorant on
Speaker 1: my part. It wasn't, but I just wanted to find
Speaker 1: out about other places, and I also was motivated to
Speaker 1: learn about other places and set books in other places.
Speaker 1: So initially I was thinking I would lead a very
Speaker 1: parapatetic life and I would change countries every time I
Speaker 1: wrote a new book. This was a tall order and
Speaker 1: it was a complete misreading of my own character. Much
Speaker 1: more of a homebody than that. And also even in
Speaker 1: terms of international travel, I discovered that I was far
Speaker 1: more interested in staying in one place for a long
Speaker 1: time and really learning about it and knowing people, making friends.
Speaker 1: I stayed in Belfast long enough to make enemies. That's
Speaker 1: when you've really arrived Belfast. I did wonder about I
Speaker 1: was in nine a dozen years, so Northern Ireland in
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighties was in the midst of the troubles. Yes,
Speaker 1: although you know it was a lot safer than people thought.
Speaker 1: You know, it was not a brave choice.
Speaker 2: But will you attracted to it because it seemed risky
Speaker 2: a contrast to growing up as the daughter of a minister.
Speaker 1: And I think it was the risk exactly that interested me.
Speaker 1: But I had a story that I wanted to sit there.
Speaker 1: I had a character that I wanted to use, who
Speaker 1: belonged in that context, but eventually I became engaged by
Speaker 1: the politics. My twenties were not particularly political. I wanted
Speaker 1: to be a novelist, but I was interested in stories
Speaker 1: in language, and it was only when I arrived in
Speaker 1: Belfast that I started getting much much more political. That
Speaker 1: period of my life was a real PhD in conflict studies.
Speaker 2: Because you have then often drawn on current themes for
Speaker 2: your books. Right, we need to talk about Kevin, your
Speaker 2: most famous book, there's a school shooting at the heart
Speaker 2: of it. These were the years after the Columbine High
Speaker 2: School massacre, so I can see that thread running through
Speaker 2: your books. They're not divorced in any way from issues
Speaker 2: and from current affairs, but the early influences in your
Speaker 2: life that sitting in church listening to your father preach.
Speaker 2: Does some of your skill with language come from that
Speaker 2: seeing how your father used words?
Speaker 1: Yes? Probably. I mean I couldn't stand going to church
Speaker 1: as a kid, and I rebelled against it, and I'm
Speaker 1: still not a practicing Christian of any kind. However, my
Speaker 1: father was a fine orator, and I think that helped me.
Speaker 1: I also grew up in a household, where as you're
Speaker 1: advice to do with children. They used their full, complex,
Speaker 1: educated vocabulary. So I grew up learning fun, long words right,
Speaker 1: and that was a huge favor to me. I've always
Speaker 1: been grateful for having become very fluent in the English
Speaker 1: language as a child. I've been crushed to discover that
Speaker 1: this ability to learn English as a child does not
Speaker 1: transfer to being able to learn any other language. It's
Speaker 1: not the same skill. I've been so disappointed.
Speaker 2: So you rebelled against church, you will say, rebelled against femininity.
Speaker 2: Would that be right? When you decided to change your
Speaker 2: name two Lionel from Margaret.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was part of it. I was
Speaker 1: not a girly girl. I grew up between two brothers,
Speaker 1: and I've always been ambivalent about being female. I'm used
Speaker 1: to it, but I don't know. If I had a
Speaker 1: choice to start with, I'd probably choose to be male.
Speaker 1: That may be simplistic, you know, the men have their
Speaker 1: own problems. The thrust of my approach to feminism as
Speaker 1: opposed to femininity is that I'm interested in minimizing the
Speaker 1: importance of sex. I feel that I have more in
Speaker 1: common with men than I have differences, and I like
Speaker 1: the company of men. I accept that there are differences
Speaker 1: between the sexes, But when I was younger, the thrust
Speaker 1: of feminism was really more interested in erasing the hard
Speaker 1: line between the sexes and recognizing our commonality. And I'm
Speaker 1: still in that place.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to hear you talk about that in the
Speaker 2: knowledge that your next book is around transgender issues.
Speaker 1: That's one of my biggest problems with the transgender movement
Speaker 1: is the emphasis on the importance of sex and that
Speaker 1: being so determinative of identity, and I think that's a
Speaker 1: false version of identity. I don't derive a lot of
Speaker 1: the meaning of my life and who I think I
Speaker 1: am from my sex. It's just not that important to me.
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons that I haven't been a
Speaker 1: big advocate for feminism. Not that I think there's anything
Speaker 1: wrong with it, but it's not what interests me. And
Speaker 1: just because I was born female in a certain era
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that that's what I wanted, that I'm obliged
Speaker 1: somehow to put all my energies into that.
Speaker 2: But did your engagement in seeing transgender issues play out
Speaker 2: make you feel more female in that? That's kind of
Speaker 2: where the battle lines were drawn that for those who
Speaker 2: have objected to the growth of the transgender movement. It
Speaker 2: was like, no, we are female. We're going to stand
Speaker 2: on that hill. I think you're coming to it from
Speaker 2: a slightly different direction.
Speaker 1: Yes, which is I am coming from a different direction.
Speaker 1: So it's not that I'm defending my sex from people
Speaker 1: who want to invade and know you can't have it.
Speaker 1: I'm saying, there, what's to have? You know, what's so
Speaker 1: great about being female? What's so great about being either sex?
Speaker 1: That's not what I understand to be an identity. When
Speaker 1: I was growing up having an identity, it didn't have
Speaker 1: to do with race, It didn't have to do with sex.
Speaker 1: It had to do with what bands did you listen to,
Speaker 1: What books did you fall in love with? What movies
Speaker 1: knock your socks off? What did you want to do?
Speaker 1: What were you good at, what were your interests? What
Speaker 1: did you have eight you know, whom did you love?
Speaker 1: That's in the mix. But the trans thing doesn't even
Speaker 1: have to do with sex, you know, having sex. It's
Speaker 1: all about really stereotypes of what it means to be
Speaker 1: male and female. And those are the same stereotypes that
Speaker 1: I rejected when I was, you know, fifteen.
Speaker 2: Can I share one observation where my heritage plays into
Speaker 2: how I see your issues. I definitely in the in
Speaker 2: the eighties and the UK, Yeah, no one would have
Speaker 2: asked me where my parents were from. That was just
Speaker 2: it just wasn't part of the conversation. But now that
Speaker 2: people do comment on that and I might talk about
Speaker 2: it a bit, or it's just more recognized as part
Speaker 2: of me. I appreciate that it's not the be all
Speaker 2: and end all. It's not like a more important aspect
Speaker 2: of my identity than something else. But it's kind of
Speaker 2: nice that it's recognized as absolutely nothing wrong with, Like,
Speaker 2: no one's skimming over it.
Speaker 1: What is your backroom?
Speaker 2: My parents came to the UK from Pakistan Muslim, Pakistani Muslim, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: But recently through who do you Think You Are? I
Speaker 2: found out that I have American revolutionaries in my ancestry.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating.
Speaker 2: And actually reading your book its title A Better Life,
Speaker 2: the ancestor I thought of was not my father moving
Speaker 2: to the UK as a doctor, but the great grandfather
Speaker 2: for generations back who decided to leave Massachusetts for India
Speaker 2: because that's where the opportunity was. Back in eighteen fifteen,
Speaker 2: rather than the cold winters of Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: Well, that sounds like a fascinating history.
Speaker 2: But there's a long sweep right of the kinds of
Speaker 2: shifts that you're talking about, and they are linked to
Speaker 2: empire and the global economy and nations having interests all
Speaker 2: around the world, powerful nations.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it sounds to me is if your
Speaker 1: family has a unique and compelling history.
Speaker 2: Not unique, I'm sure, Well, maybe not.
Speaker 1: Perfectly unique, but particular, and there's nothing wrong with finding
Speaker 1: that story rich and identifying with it. But you also
Speaker 1: have a considerable career and I would be surprised if
Speaker 1: that's the only thing that you you know, that that's
Speaker 1: what you reduce yourself to.
Speaker 2: It's maybe, yeah, the UK, the country that you lived
Speaker 2: in for nearly forty years before leaving, I'm curious about
Speaker 2: why you left. What was the cause? You live in Portugal?
Speaker 1: Now, yes, I mean there was a host of positive reasons.
Speaker 1: We have friends that preceded us there, good friends. My
Speaker 1: husband is a jazz drummer and he's played with Portuguese
Speaker 1: musicians for years, so that we had a kind of
Speaker 1: ready made alternative social life, and we were both reaching
Speaker 1: an age that if we were going to ever make
Speaker 1: a major geographical change, we'd better do it soon, because
Speaker 1: otherwise that would pass us by. We'd probably just age
Speaker 1: in place, or even worse, in my view, just withdrawn
Speaker 1: back to the United States. That kind of a future
Speaker 1: I found a little disappointing. And on the negative side,
Speaker 1: I felt things are not going very well in this
Speaker 1: country and I didn't have to be a part of
Speaker 1: that deterioration. And there were little things, I mean, the
Speaker 1: new tax system that they were bringing in for self
Speaker 1: employed people.
Speaker 2: But also immigration.
Speaker 1: No, that was not a major factor.
Speaker 2: Really. I've heard you suggest.
Speaker 1: The profile that misquoted me altogether.
Speaker 2: Well tell me in your own words, because i've heard you.
Speaker 2: I've heard you say things like that the neighborhood you
Speaker 2: were living in London became very changed. It became very Nigerian.
Speaker 1: It was mostly yes, mostly North African, and it had
Speaker 1: been a white working class area. Uh and the original
Speaker 1: population had completely disappeared.
Speaker 2: And that was part of your thinking. Wasn't it that
Speaker 2: you felt you weren't functionally living in England anymore?
Speaker 1: Well, that is correct, I didn't. London is no longer
Speaker 1: an English city, but that was not that was not
Speaker 1: the driving reason that I wept the gun.
Speaker 2: I mean you have again. I've heard you say several
Speaker 2: times on podcasts that the experience of Muslim immigrants, in
Speaker 2: particular to the to the UK and Europe has been catastrophic.
Speaker 1: I am worried that the that we're dealing with this
Speaker 1: certain civilizational incompatibility, and I think that's especially the case
Speaker 1: when we're dealing with mass immigration. And the experience of
Speaker 1: Muslims in the United States has been very different because
Speaker 1: the quantity has been small, and American Muslims are overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: well integrated with the rest of the country. They're usually
Speaker 1: well educated, they earn a lot of money, they're prosperous,
Speaker 1: and they fit in well with U a society. And
Speaker 1: I think that's one of my concerns about mass immigration
Speaker 1: as opposed to immigration, is that when you establish whole
Speaker 1: communities of people from elsewhere, then there's no need to
Speaker 1: fit in with the larger population.
Speaker 2: But what you call mass immigration, and I think specifically
Speaker 2: your issue has been largely with Muslim immigration, right, That's
Speaker 2: what I'd say, No, in the in the UK. In
Speaker 2: the in the UK, that's obviously one of the big issues.
Speaker 2: And what are the problems that you see more broadly
Speaker 2: because you can. These are very broad things you're saying
Speaker 2: about assimilation. But the home sectory in this country is
Speaker 2: a Muslim. The Mayor of London is a Muslim. The
Speaker 2: youngest Nobel laureate in the world is a Muslim who
Speaker 2: lives here. So you're generalizing, aren't you.
Speaker 1: Of course I'm generalizing. We're having a conversation.
Speaker 2: We are, but I mean generalize.
Speaker 1: There is certainly, you know, there's been a a lot
Speaker 1: of integration at the top politically and and and socially,
Speaker 1: but on the ground, you know, there are there is
Speaker 1: a discomfort. I'm okay going to make generalizations and it
Speaker 1: doesn't apply to everyone, but I'd happily make generalizations about Americans.
Speaker 1: So discomfort with freedom of speech, right, pressure, pressure for censorship,
Speaker 1: pressure for the larger society to recognize what our de
Speaker 1: facto blasphemy was. Practices like female genital mutilation coming out
Speaker 1: of North End and East Africa.
Speaker 2: That's something that comes that that that that's something that
Speaker 2: comes is not rooted in Islam.
Speaker 1: It's no, it is, but it does. It comes to
Speaker 1: communities of different not necessarily, not necessarily necessary. We're generalized, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are.
Speaker 2: I guess I feel like i've I've read your books
Speaker 2: for so many years. There are such deep and beautiful
Speaker 2: portraits of individuals, of relationships of characters within them. And
Speaker 2: then I read your non Fit and I hear you
Speaker 2: on podcasts, and you're very willing to extrapolate massively from
Speaker 2: social problems that definitely exist that perhaps might be better
Speaker 2: tackled without the big generalization, without making people feel you're
Speaker 2: seeing a mass rather than individuals.
Speaker 1: Well, when you write a column, I mean you're Devil's
Speaker 1: advocating because you understand this better than your pretending as
Speaker 1: a journalist, and you're an opinion journalist. You have to
Speaker 1: make generalizations, you have to make a point. That's what
Speaker 1: I do. I have a column and the Spectator, And
Speaker 1: if you're going to make a broad point, you inevitably
Speaker 1: make generalizations that don't necessarily apply to everyone. And if
Speaker 1: you restrict yourself to making assertions that apply to absolutely everybody,
Speaker 1: you basically don't write a column.
Speaker 2: Right, I get that, But I still think there's something
Speaker 2: about evidence, isn't there?
Speaker 1: And I always try to use evidence when I'm backing
Speaker 1: up a position, and in fact I do in a
Speaker 1: novel as well, and a better life is set, I
Speaker 1: would say, profoundly in a time and place, and all
Speaker 1: of the events in the novel that are not to
Speaker 1: do with my particular little story are real life events,
Speaker 1: and therefore that's evidence. I mean that it's and that's
Speaker 1: what happens in nonfiction as well. You assemble a set
Speaker 1: of facts and try to persuade the reader that your
Speaker 1: general view here is valid.
Speaker 2: Do you think that your fiction has been changed by
Speaker 2: your immersion in social and political issues. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think of another novelist who writes as much nonfiction as
Speaker 2: in as many regular columns as you do, at the
Speaker 2: same time as they're writing numerous novels, and I'm wondering
Speaker 2: what the crossover is between the two.
Speaker 1: I think there's considerable crossover. I'm interested in the world,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm interested in the big issues of my day.
Speaker 1: And I'm getting older and life is short. And if
Speaker 1: I'm going to participate in the world as opposed to
Speaker 1: stay back and be an artist and write these rarefied
Speaker 1: you know, pretty sentences, you know, that's a choice, and
Speaker 1: I've made my choice. I'm going to be part of
Speaker 1: the world. I have made Some would say a sacrifice
Speaker 1: in exposing cheerfully exposing what I think in nonfiction, and
Speaker 1: therefore I have sacrificed any sense of mystery. Right. I
Speaker 1: am horribly accessible and you don't have to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time wondering what I'm like and what I think, really,
Speaker 1: because you just have to open the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Or listen to podcasts, or when you're in the UK,
Speaker 2: you are frequently on news programs, for example.
Speaker 1: And the other sacrifice is that you know everyone doesn't
Speaker 1: agree with my positions. You don't, and therefore I alienate,
Speaker 1: I potentially alienate part of my audience, and I guess
Speaker 1: I accept that that's what happens when you take positions
Speaker 1: on things. Other people are going to disagree with you,
Speaker 1: which is fine, It's it's a it's a large world totally,
Speaker 1: and that's try to have speech.
Speaker 2: In it, thankfully. But in fairness, I would like to
Speaker 2: clarify that it's not that I'm disagreeing with you. I'm
Speaker 2: curious about your evidence and and I think that you
Speaker 2: do often make very broad assertions that leave do leave
Speaker 2: things out of it, and again that's your prerogative. You'll
Speaker 2: concentrate on an indiviry and social lils are important. Don't
Speaker 2: get me wrong, I think a lot of the issues
Speaker 2: you highlight are really and deserve to have a you know,
Speaker 2: to be properly tackled through conversation and action. I'm just
Speaker 2: wondering if that process is a bit harder when there
Speaker 2: are lots of generalizations.
Speaker 1: I feel that you're really talking about my columns and
Speaker 1: not about the novels.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, actually I did want to talk about the
Speaker 2: novels night because I was reading We Need to Talk
Speaker 2: about Heaven Again, and it made me think about the
Speaker 2: depth of the way you write that. You could easily
Speaker 2: think about this book as being about a school shooting,
Speaker 2: but actually it's about a female protagonist about her attitude
Speaker 2: to motherhood and marriage, and there's so many really deep
Speaker 2: characterizations and in a Better Life, I think you're not
Speaker 2: going quite as deep into the characters. Are you writing
Speaker 2: books perhaps faster than you did in the past.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think I'm writing them faster. I think
Speaker 1: they're a little shorter. Part of that is I'm editing more.
Speaker 1: I think that the that readers in general, insofar as
Speaker 1: there are any of them left, uh prefer shorter books
Speaker 1: now because of the you know, the famous crap attention span,
Speaker 1: and there's a there's a sacrifice there. There are things
Speaker 1: you can accomplish with a much longer book that that
Speaker 1: you can't with a shorter book. I mean there's there's
Speaker 1: only and when you have a certain number of characters,
Speaker 1: there's only so deep you're going to get.
Speaker 2: You've also come back from having a major illness. You've
Speaker 2: had a serious autoimmune disorder that affected you a lot
Speaker 2: in the last few years. And how has that changed
Speaker 2: your routine, what you feel able to do, how you
Speaker 2: want to spend your day.
Speaker 1: Well, nowadays, it hasn't changed anything.
Speaker 2: You're back.
Speaker 1: I have back surgery and it kicked off a g'ambre syndrome,
Speaker 1: which is an automoimmune disease that means your body is
Speaker 1: attacking its own neurological system, and in a weird way.
Speaker 1: This was perfectly designed to fell me, in particular because
Speaker 1: I'm a fitness nut and the effect of dissolving your
Speaker 1: neurological system is to dissolve your musculature. So within weeks,
Speaker 1: my biceps had drooped down into bingo wings. All my
Speaker 1: muscles just disappeared, and I could not stand anymore. I
Speaker 1: could only lift a cup of coffee by using both hands.
Speaker 1: I couldn't open my own hair clip, so I was
Speaker 1: reduced almost to an infant, and little by little, once
Speaker 1: I was given a medication to stop the process, I
Speaker 1: recovered my strength, but it was tedious as hell.
Speaker 2: So You've had to really work hard at getting your
Speaker 2: body back to where it was. And has it changed
Speaker 2: you having such a shock to the system, realizing how
Speaker 2: frail we are when something like that hits us.
Speaker 1: It was humbling. It made me incredibly grateful to particularly
Speaker 1: my husband and my younger brother who helped me through it.
Speaker 1: It certainly gave me a renewed appreciation for the importance
Speaker 1: of marriage and family who really redeemed themselves and did
Speaker 1: more for me that then I would ever have expected
Speaker 1: them to do before this happened. So I came out
Speaker 1: with a sense of gratitude. I certainly was reminded that
Speaker 1: I was mortal, and I would like to say that
Speaker 1: I've carried that gratitude into, you know, my every waking hour.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad to be here. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: I can now, you know, I can do calisthenex, I
Speaker 1: can jump up and down. I can walk down the street,
Speaker 1: and I would love to be able to tell you
Speaker 1: that I hold that with me all the time, but
Speaker 1: they don't. I'm a normal person. And you know, once
Speaker 1: you can go back to walking around and jumping up
Speaker 1: and down, you take it for granted, like work anybody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we forget pretty quickly. Yeah, we move on. That's
Speaker 2: probably part of necessary humanity. Also putting things behind us.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, that was one of the things I learned
Speaker 1: that you never learn.
Speaker 2: Lionel Shreve, good luck with the next book. Thank you
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 1: It's been a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2: And that's where we left it. In the written version
Speaker 2: at Bloomberg dot com forward slash Michelle, you'll find some
Speaker 2: of what I use to research and prepare for this conversation,
Speaker 2: including data his historical context and Lionel Schreiver's comments Elsewhere
Speaker 2: and so to the team. The producers are Jessica Beck
Speaker 2: and Chris martlou. The video producer is Andy Haywood. Social
Speaker 2: media is by Alex Morgan, Production assistance by Jennifer Seeley,
Speaker 2: audio mixing by Richard ward Our music is by Bart Walshaw,
Speaker 2: and the executive producer is Louisa Lewis at Bloomberg Weekend.
Speaker 2: The Director of Audio and Special Projects is Brendan Francis Newnham,
Speaker 2: and our executive editor is Catherine Bell. Just to remind you,
Speaker 2: the email is Micheal Show at Bloomberg dot net and
Speaker 2: we do write back until next time. Goodbye,