{"id":1096,"date":"2017-09-05T15:57:24","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T19:57:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvercentury.org\/2017\/09\/so-much-for-that\/"},"modified":"2018-03-21T09:10:06","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T13:10:06","slug":"so-much-for-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2017\/09\/so-much-for-that\/","title":{"rendered":"So Much for That"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span class=\"byline\">By&nbsp;<span class=\"\">Lionel Shriver<\/span>&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;<em>HarperCollins, 2010<\/em>&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Only the bravest writer would consider America&#8217;s broken health care system fodder for fiction. Lionel Shriver brings us Shep Knacker, a generous, middle-aged everyman who has sacrificed and invested, planning an early retirement in Africa. Plane tickets in hand, he is confronted with news of his wife&#8217;s terminal illness. Shep&#8217;s relationships with family and friends are tested in the ordeal of his wife&#8217;s battle with cancer. His health insurance is inadequate, his job is demoralizing and the caregiving is exhausting. The characters are real; the dialogue, intelligent, cynical and witty; the issue, so relevant but uncomfortable. Chronicled at the start of each chapter is Shep&#8217;s rapidly dwindling Merrill Lynch account, begging you to consider: just how much is one life worth? This fictional account that feels all too real shows how the burden of health care is borne by the survivors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By&nbsp;Lionel Shriver&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp;HarperCollins, 2010&nbsp; Only the bravest writer would consider America&#8217;s broken health care system fodder for fiction. Lionel Shriver brings us Shep Knacker, a generous, middle-aged everyman who has sacrificed and invested, planning an early retirement in Africa. Plane tickets<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/2017\/09\/so-much-for-that\/\">Read more <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">So Much for That<\/span><span class=\"meta-nav\"> &#8250;<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-families"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3799,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions\/3799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/78.142.243.82\/~silvercentury\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}