Game Control

Game Control
Lionel Shriver

Following the success of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ and ‘The Post-Birthday World’, ‘Game Control’ is coming back into print after being unavailable for years.Eleanor Merritt, a do-gooding American family-planning worker, was drawn to Kenya to improve the lot of the poor. Unnervingly, she finds herself falling in love with the beguiling Calvin Piper despite, or perhaps because of, his misanthropic theories about population control and the future of the human race. Surely, Calvin whispers seductively in Eleanor's ear, if the poor are a responsibility they are also an imposition.Set against the vivid backdrop of shambolic modern-day Africa – a continent now primarily populated with wildlife of the two-legged sort – Lionel Shriver's ‘Game Control’ is a wry, grimly comic tale of bad ideas and good intentions. With a deft, droll touch, Shriver highlights the hypocrisy of lofty intellectuals who would ‘save’ humanity but who don't like people.

Copyright (#u7541799c-d361-5779-aa50-13b95d158c32)

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

Published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

First published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber 1994

Copyright © Lionel Shriver 1994

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com (http://www.Shutterstock.com)

Lionel Shriver asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical figures, are the work of the author’s imagination.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books

Source ISBN: 9780007578016

Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007301751

Version: 04-02-2014

Dedication (#u7541799c-d361-5779-aa50-13b95d158c32)

To the

NAIROBI PRESS CORPS

whom I can thank for

my most barbaric opinions,

and none of whose number

ever batted an eye

at the premise of this book.

(#u7541799c-d361-5779-aa50-13b95d158c32)

The most dignified thing for a worm to do is to sit up and sit still.

Henry Adams

Table of Contents

Cover (#u7e8ae375-5ebd-516d-8e5a-927dda917e7b)

Title Page (#u18fec7bd-6918-500f-b951-665d67b8d5b8)

Copyright (#uc2276cae-4344-53ea-8054-016c35fa6976)

Dedication (#udb7750a7-43fd-58da-a617-dadc15170677)

Epigraph (#u7764012b-bbfc-5db4-8629-fce1af9ecc53)

chapter one (#u2e9a1ce4-b74c-5611-80bb-46ae77a9d36f)

chapter two (#u67b046ea-da2e-5317-8daf-39cf6205bbd6)

chapter three (#ub9104fcd-47ee-5c30-9d40-faa021798422)

chapter four (#u47dbaeec-2771-55ae-88c0-c86e98e70080)

chapter five (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter six (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter seven (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eight (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter nine (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter ten (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

chapter thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)