Few novelists today can match Lionel Shriver for topical range. The author of 18 books, she is best known for her 2003 novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin , about a teenager who murders several of his classmates. The nine novels that followed include a clever critique of the American health-care system ( So Much for That , 2010), a family drama about the obesity epidemic ( Big Brother , 2013), an economic dystopia ( The Mandibles , 2016), a satiric look at the growing popularity of extreme