The Mandibles: A Family, 2029–2047

A peek into America’s near future. What dystopia looks like in suburban U.S.A. when electricity permanently fails. A family copes in surprising ways, altering them forever. A well written and entertaining book.

A standalone, no prequel, no sequel, book about a financial apocalypse in the USA starting in 2029. I read the well printed and well bound 400 page trade paperback published by Harper Perennial in 2017. BTW, this book is labeled as dystopian fiction by Amazon and others. I doubt that there will be any future prequels or sequels for the book as the author does not seem to go that way.The book covers four generations of a family in the near future. The family consists of about twenty people of whom I mostly did not like due to their overall craziness and attitudes about life. If there was anyone who came close, it was Florence Mandible who even as a single mother managed to buy a house in East Flatbush, NYC on a low income salary. But even she makes a lot of bad decisions that lead to a tough life. And I mostly liked Enola Mandible who was a successful author living in Europe but evacuated back to the USA due to supposed discrimination in Paris. Plus I liked Jarred Mandible who managed to get his patriarch grandfather to give him the money to buy a small farm in upper state New York.The conditions leading up to the beginning of the financial apocalypse in the USA in 2029 had their roots in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, basically the Great Society federal and state programs. And in the continual wars and police actions started or participating in by the USA from WWI onward. One might exempt WWII from that list as WWII was supposedly actually good for the economics of the country but I have not researched that accepted fact for truthfulness.In 2029, the rest of the world changes from using the USA Dollar as the world reserve currency to the new Bancor, a basket of world currencies. The USA Treasury Bills, of which there are $40 trillion outstanding, immediately double their interest rates in the next sale. The USA President and Congress pass legislation that holding Bancors is illegal for any USA citizen. Under further financial pressure, the USA repudiates the entire $40 trillion debt and starts seizing all the gold across the country from both citizens and businesses. Even gold wedding rings are seized as China has demanded that their tbills be redeemed immediately with non USA Dollars.The patriarch of the Mandible family is a 97 year man with a fortune inherited from his grandparents who owned a steel mill. The patriarch has his fortune invested in gold stocks, stocks of gold bullion in central repositories, tbills, and the stock market. With the crash of the stock market, seizure of gold, and repudiation of all tbills, he is wiped out and he and his Alzheimer afflicted second wife move in with his son and his wife. And then the entire family ends up moving in with Florence in her tiny three bedroom house. But that quickly goes away also as the remaining family members are soon homeless and living in a park.The author freely acknowledges that in choosing paths for the family and the nation, she always chose the bad results path. She thinks that her book takes an optimistic view of the coming financial apocalypse which I find amazing.

some nice ideas of what could become reality if the Dollar was to crash but thew writing wasn't top notch and the rest left a lot to be desired, the protagonist, a young boy, had the foresight to predict alot of the events in advance.I didn't enjoy how the book jumped from mid-leaving town to way in the future either, I would have liked to see their story continue. Instead we receive tidbits and one liners for how main characters wound up dead or otherwise in passing conversations

I had bought this book months earlier and I usually love anything written by Lionel Shriver. I think that I held off as I knew that the narrative had a high amount of economic comment (high for a novel anyway!!) and I've got to be in the right mood for this sort of book. Anyhow, the time came that I was up for it!!Having read the first few pages I wasn't sure why I had delayed so long. This book is great and written in the author's usual, dry and sardonic style.The novel starts in 2029 after an economic crash in the US which has turned the world upside down. It's really interesting to see the different levels of predictions from the mundane to the global. This book will become even more fascinating to read as we get closer to the actual date (remember all the interest in 1984?).I love the details - the names of the characters are intriguing, particularly the children (Goog, Bing, Willing, Fifa as examples) and the use of technology is very inventive.There is something quite eerie when you see a world which is similar to the present day but worse and all the differences are very plausible. It is a frightening to think about the speed of change - imagine a world with no Amazon, no Apple and no Google as they have all gone in this novel.At times there are some very detailed descriptions of the financial markets which lost me unless I was working really hard with the narrative. It is an essential part of the story though as everything hangs on what happens with the money that is available.The humour is bleak but laugh out loud funny at times - "Plots set in the future are about what people fear in the present" - how true is that!!I've read a lot of recent work by this author in the media commenting on society and politics which gave this novel a huge amount of gravitas. There is an uneasy feeling that you are not just reading a work of fiction and that you are listening to someone who is telling the truth.It's a sobering experience, watching on as the society crumbles and I found that I could only read this book in relatively short sessions, this also allowed her messages of doom to sink in. I took strong messages from this book and will be talking about it for sometime.Much of the novel is negative about the human spirit but there are glimpses of good in humanity and they are shown when they are particularly needed.I have to say that I was pleased when I reached the end as it is a tough read but I had gained much from the messages in the way that I think about the economy.I desperately want to recommend this to everyone but will need to be selective as this will be too intense for many.

Une autre dystopie, excellente, catastrophe économique très vraisemblable. J'ai bien aimé les critiques du politiquement correct...Une vision d'un futur proche décrivant la vie d'après le Krach boursier qui s'annonce...Au moins du niveau de "Soumission "