The Fine Balance Required of an ‘Authorial Rant’

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Novelists, including great ones, can be a cranky bunch. The crankiest one I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing was Lionel Shriver, the author of, most famously, We Need to Talk About Kevin. When we met in her South London home for a profile in 2013, she warned me to keep my coat on because she wasn’t giving the “price gougers” at the gas company any more money for heat. Her husband...