Another bracing read from Lionel Shriver. Covering a few similar themes to one of her earlier novels, Double Fault, about the havoc sport and passion can wreak on a marriage, this is the story of Serenata and her husband - not having ever identified as a runner or swimmer, she still loved exercise but she is no longer able to run, swim and cycle owing to knee injuries. Her husband Remington takes up long-distance running, and, later, triathlons, with a rag-tag group of other wannabe champions including an addict, a young bro, the town Lothario and the voracious trainer Bambi, who would inspire anyone to lock up their partners until she'd cycled past.

Shriver is on blistering form about the new cults of exercise, typically scathing about all things PC or, in the words of Serenata's millennial cleaner 'problematic,' and unromantic about the challenges of having a family (Serenata's daughter is a born-again Christian and her son Deacon resembles a more charismatic, less violent'Kevin who has spent his childhood stealing people's treasured possessions and now presumably deals in pharmaceuticals).

In the end, though, this is a rather sweet story about a relationship, conjuring up the two (or three) loving marriages in The Post-Birthday World and Big Brother. Is Shriver mellowing? Probably not. But she can still write.

Shriver has written a thoughtful and introspective novel centred around a couple in their sixties.
Serenata has always been a disciplined athlete and runner. But her knees have given up and she faces having them replaced.
Her husband Remington - never a sportsman - suddenly decides to take up running and to do a marathon.
The novel charts the effect on their relationship as Remington becomes increasingly obsessed by running and then triathlon, and develops a close relationship with his evangelical coach and mentor Bambi Buffer.
The characters are well-developed but some will find the novel too insular, meandering and intellectually analytical in its handling of the relationship.
Others will enjoy its cultural relevance and rigour as it takes on themes of body obsession and how we measure the value of our physical selves, as well as a dry look at how we handle what some would term political correctness.
I really liked this portrait of a long marriage being tested and found the novel - a little slow at first - built to a real page-turner.
So I’d say it’s quite different from Shriver’s other novels but compelling, and recommended.

For me, this is the best thing Shriver has written since Big Brother. It may not have the urgency of Kevin, say, but it's a scathing indictment of our cultural obsession with, even fetishisation of, diet, health and extreme fitness ('fitness fundamentalism' - haha!) - epitomised here by 65 year old Remington deciding to do first a marathon and then a triathlon. At the same time, it's also a portrait of a strong marriage in crisis, and Shriver weaves the two strands together with seamless mastery.

Serenata is one of Shriver's complex women who is wonderfully sharp and individual but also increasingly vulnerable both physically and emotionally. What Shriver manages so well is to keep this engaging as a novel, and avoid the trap of simply writing polemic or diatribe.

Alight with a dark humour, dropping in social commentary on everything from PC-ness to aging to religion (and sport becomes a religion in the book), this is hugely enjoyable: sly, intelligent, belligerent in places and bold.