Lionel Shriver - The Motion of the Body Through Space

The Borough Press

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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers 2020

Copyright © Lionel Shriver 2020

Cover /illustration © Shout/Dutch uncle

Cover design by Claire Ward © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2020

Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007560813

Ebook Edition © APRIL 2021 ISBN: 9780007560806

Version: 2021-02-01

‘Enjoyably abrasive … a compelling read … sardonic and elegant’

Evening Standard

‘Scabrously funny … few authors can be as entertainingly problematic as Shriver’

Guardian

‘With laugh-out-loud and sad moments, it’s a pinpoint-sharp novel’

Woman & Home

‘Darkly funny … Shriver is so good at making wry observations about human behaviour and this is particularly witty on the dynamics between couples who have been together a long time’

Good Housekeeping

‘Shriver is an exuberant novelist, fertile in ideas, robust in argument and disdainful of economy … She writes bold and fearless comedy and delights in slaughtering the sacred cows of the stupid times we live in. Few novelists now raise a laugh. Shriver does so time and again’

ALLAN MASSIE, Scotsman

‘A satire on fitness zealotry with a side serving of culture-war intrigue … diverting’

Financial Times

‘Mischievous Lionel Shriver takes aim at the narcissistic modern cult of exercise. When Serenata’s usually sedentary husband, Remington, takes up exercise and engages an attractive personal trainer called Bambi, the couple’s lives are turned upside down’

The Times

To Jeff—whose luxurious lassitude has spared me the plot of this novel.

Added together and divided by two, we make a perfectly balanced person.

“The glory of suffering might be humankind’s biggest, ever-recyclable con trick.”

—MELANIE REID, The World I Fell Out Of

“Clearly his personal god or chi was not made for great things. A man could not rise beyond the destiny of his chi . The saying of the elders was not true—that if a man said yea his chi also affirmed. Here was a man whose chi said nay despite his own affirmation.”

—CHINUA ACHEBE, Things Fall Apart

Contents

Cover

Title Page THE MOTION OF THE BODY THROUGH SPACE Lionel Shriver

Copyright

Praise for The Motion of the Body Through Space

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Afterword

About the Author

Also by Lionel Shriver

About the Publisher

“I’ve decided to run a marathon.”

In a second-rate sitcom, she’d have spewed coffee across her breakfast. Yet Serenata was an understated person, and between sips. “What?” Her tone was a little arch, but polite.

“You heard me.” Back to the stove, Remington studied her with a discomfiting level gaze. “I have my eye on the race in Saratoga Springs in April.”

She had the sense, rare in her marriage, that she should watch what she said. “This is serious. You’re not pulling my leg.”

“Do I often make statements of intent, and then pull the rug out: just foolin’? I’m not sure how to take your disbelief as anything but an insult.”

“My ‘disbelief’ might have something to do with the fact that I’ve never seen you run from here to the living room.”

“Why would I run to the living room?”

The literalism had precedent. They called each other out in this nitpicking manner as a matter of course. It was a game. “For the last thirty-two years, you’ve not once trotted out for a run around the block. And now you tell me with a straight face that you want to run a marathon. You must have assumed I’d be a bit surprised.”

“Go ahead, then. Be surprised.”

“It doesn’t bother you …” Serenata continued to feel careful. She didn’t care for the carefulness, not one bit. “… That your ambition is hopelessly trite?”