Author Lionel Shriver argues that resistance to mass immigration stems from a primitive, universal human instinct to defend one's territory. Progressive discourse often demands that people, particularly Americans, disable this deep-seated instinct, creating a fundamental and often unacknowledged societal tension.
Lionel Shriver's novel portrays American-born characters as listless and ineffective, creating a space for savvy immigrant characters to thrive by responding to systemic incentives. This dynamic suggests a culture's decline is marked by the passivity and naivete of its native population.
Shriver, who is childless, reframes the "child-free" lifestyle not as a personal choice but as a fundamentally irresponsible act when adopted at a civilizational scale. She argues it is an ungenerous refusal to perpetuate the culture one inherited, thereby contributing to its decline.
In Shriver's novel, the progressive characters' naivety is to see immigrants as simplistically good. The protagonist's "wariness," conversely, ascribes to them the "diabolical complexity of a real human being," which the book presents as a more profound and genuine form of respect.
Author Lionel Shriver prefers writing in "Third-Person Limited" (seeing the world through one character's eyes) because it replicates the human condition. We are trapped in our own heads and must interpret others based on external evidence, making this narrative style deeply realistic.
According to Lionel Shriver, a novelist's task is not to reinforce beliefs but to plant a seed of doubt. By presenting a compelling alternative reality, fiction can contaminate a reader's innocent assumptions and force them to contend with complexity, splitting their perspective.
Lionel Shriver argues against the concept of "cultural appropriation," stating that no group "owns" its culture. Culture is a shared inheritance, not a discrete property with fixed boundaries. It thrives when shared and mixed, and attempts to fence it off are childish and counterproductive to art.