Lionel Shriver 谈她的新小说《A Better Life》，这本书把一栋被移民占据的纽约房子当作隐喻，指向 Joe Biden 任内美国的移民潮。她说这个构想源自 Eric Adams 提议付钱给纽约人收留移民，而这本书聚焦于 Gloria、来自宏都拉斯的 Martine，以及 Gloria 无所事事的 26 岁儿子 Nico。这次访谈也置于更广泛的背景之下：美国持续围绕移民执法爆发冲突，包括致命的 ICE 枪击事件、国会中的资金争执，以及 Trump 政府把 ICE 探员派往机场的举动。
Shriver 认为，涌入的移民暴露了规模与同化方面的问题，并说 Biden 放进了至少 10 million、甚至可能多达 20 million 名移民。她主张，大量低技能移入者会对福利制度造成压力，而更有选择性的移民政策会偏向那些贡献大于成本、且能够同化的人。她说大规模移民会削弱社会凝聚力，并把这点与早年主要来自欧洲的移民时代作对比；她支持合法移民，但反对她所称的庞大非法移民。她也批评 ICE 的手段过于军事化，但同时表示驱逐出境仍会传递必要的讯号。
文章也回顾了 Shriver 更广泛的观点与生平：她在 1980年代中期离开美国，之后在英国生活了近 40 年，后来又和她的丈夫、一位爵士鼓手一起搬到葡萄牙。她把自己的小说与非小说写作连结到重大的社会议题，说自己现在写得更短，因为读者的注意力更短，并描述她在背部手术后罹患 Guillain-Barré syndrome 的恢复过程；那次手术让她无法站立，几乎像个婴儿。她说这场疾病让她对丈夫、兄弟和朋友更加感激，同时也加深了她对死亡的感受，而且她一再区分对大规模移民的反对与对一般移民的支持。
Lionel Shriver discusses her new novel, A Better Life, which uses a New York house overrun by migrants as a metaphor for mass immigration in the US during Joe Biden's presidency. She says the idea grew out of Eric Adams' proposal to pay New Yorkers to house migrants, and the book centers on Gloria, Martine from Honduras, and Gloria's aimless 26-year-old son Nico. The interview also sits against a wider backdrop of continued conflict over immigration enforcement in the US, including deadly ICE shootings, funding fights in Congress, and the Trump administration's move to send ICE agents to airports.
Shriver argues that the influx of migrants exposed problems of scale and assimilation, saying Biden let in at least 10 million immigrants and possibly as many as 20 million. She claims that large numbers of low-skilled arrivals can strain welfare systems, while more selective immigration would favor people who contribute more than they cost and can assimilate. She says mass immigration can weaken social cohesion, contrasts this with earlier eras of mostly European immigration, and supports legal immigration while opposing what she calls massive illegal immigration. She also criticizes ICE tactics as overly militarized even as she says deportations send a needed signal.
The article also revisits Shriver's broader views and biography: she left the US in the mid-1980s, lived in the UK for nearly 40 years, and later moved to Portugal with her husband, jazz drummer. She connects her fiction and nonfiction to big social issues, says her writing is shorter now because readers have less attention span, and describes recovering from Guillain-Barré syndrome after back surgery that left her unable to stand and nearly like an infant. She says the illness left her more grateful to her husband, brother, and friends, while reinforcing her sense of mortality, and she repeatedly distinguishes between opposition to mass migration and support for immigration in general.