Pearson Converse teaches literature at Verlaine University, Pennsylvania. She exists in an alternative universe to our own in which the Mental Parity Movement holds sway. There is intellectual levelling, and no ‘cognitive discrimination’. This is high satire, exaggerated, crude, inviting ridicule of the social system portrayed, close to the great satirists of the 18th century in tone if not in style.
Yet Lionel Shriver’s Mania is more than just a satire. It is a study of Pearson’s family life and her ‘unbalanced’ relationship with her best friend from childhood, Emory. Pearson has three children: an intellectually gifted girl and boy by a high-IQ sperm donor, and an averagely intelligent girl conceived with her tree-surgeon partner, Wade. He falls victim to Mental Parity because he is forced to employ an unqualified assistant. This ingenu lets a lopped branch fall on Wade which breaks his ankle. He is then operated on by an incompetent young surgeon (who is supposed to be as good as anyone else), and is left incapacitated for the rest of his life.
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