Lionel Shriver discusses her new novel, The New Republic, about a disgruntled New York corporate lawyer who becomes a foreign correspondent in a Portuguese province where a homegrown terrorist movement has sprung up. He thinks he is replacing the larger-than-life reporter he longs to emulate, who has disappeared, but all is not as it seems when the terrorist incidents dry up after that reporter’s disappearance.

Lionel Shriver’s novel The New Republic is maybe in a genre by itself: a comedy about terrorism. “When I finished the novel in 1998,” she tells Kurt Andersen, “I did try to publish it, and I just couldn’t stir any interest.” After September 11, on the other hand, “publishing this book ...

Lionel Shriver discusses her most recent novel, So Much for That, about a man whose plan to retire to an idyllic Third World locale where his nest egg can last forever is derailed when his wife is diagnosed with a serious illness and needs his health insurance.