Lionel Shriver

This is all the result of individual political decisions.

The Biden administration opened that border on purpose.

There is design behind it.

We are not acting out of self-interest.

This movement has brought out the worst in women.

I'm a big fan with masculine virtues, and I mean that on an individual level, but also on a cultural one.

We have poo-pooed them for a long time.

Our countries are being overrun by strangers because nobody is stopping them.

Third time lucky.

Oh, yeah, I tried to go for the safe subject.

Well, I am always looking for a gap in the cultural library.

There's no point in writing a book that has been written multiple times.

I'm trying to look for something that people are not writing about.

And there's usually a reason people are not writing about something, because it's dangerous, it's too polarizing.

And there have certainly been plenty of novels about immigration, but they're always implicitly pro-immigration because they are reliably told from the perspective of the immigrant.

And they're not necessarily all bad novels.

And in fact, I think the

The format of the immigrant story is narratively appealing intrinsically.

Someone who's seeking a better life is on a journey, is literally going from A to B, and therefore perhaps making another kind of spiritual, political, social journey.

and has to face obstacles to overcome is usually at a disadvantage.