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The year is 2029, and nothing is as it should be. The very essence of American life, the dollar, is under attack. In a coordinated move by the rest of the world’s governments, the dollar loses all its value. The American President declares that the States will default on all its loans–prices skyrocke...

The year is 2029, and nothing is as it should be. The very essence of American life, the dollar, is under attack. In a coordinated move by the rest of the world’s governments, the dollar loses all its value. The American President declares that the States will default on all its loans–prices skyrocket, currency becomes essentially worthless, and we watch one family struggle to survive through it all.

The Mandibles can count on their inheritance no longer, and each member must come to terms with this in their own way–from the elegant expat author Nollie, in her middle age, returning to the U.S. from Paris after many years abroad, to her precocious teenage nephew Willing, who is the only one to actually understand the crisis, to the brilliant Georgetown economics professor Lowell, who watches his whole vision of the world disintegrate before his eyes.

As ever, in her new novel, Shriver draws larger than life characters who illuminate this complicated, ever-changing world. One of our sharpest observers of human nature, Shriver challenges us to think long and hard about the society we live in and what, ultimately, we hold most dear.

(From Goodreads)

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Number of Pages: 416

ISBN: 0062328247

ISBN-13: 9780062328243


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Recommendations from around the web and our community.

cannot get this book out of my head, it is a must read

The Mandibles is a great fiction work about this that draws on a lot of history

Really enjoyed this one. Last line of the book was 👌

Now would be a good time to read "The Mandibles" again... or for the first time.

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Asked by Jash Dholani

Not really sci-fi but The Mandibles is the funniest, most plausible and therefore most unnerving dystopian fiction I’ve read.

Other recent fiction that knocked my socks off: The Mandibles - not nearly as well written, but fascinating setting of the US losing global reserve currency status and ensuing chaos of hyperinflation for a generationally wealthy family as gold and foreign currencies are banned

The world that the Mandible family must negotiate is evoked in seamless detail… One thing I really like is her coining of made-up slang for her younger generation of characters and her resolutely materialist analysis of what could be coming.