The Mandibles imagines what happens to a once-prosperous American family when the U.S. defaults on its sovereign debt and the economy collapses. Lionel Shriver, known for novels including We Need to Talk About Kevin, follows the Mandible family from 2029 through 2047 as generational wealth evaporates and members who expected comfortable inheritances must scramble for survival. The patriarch, Douglas Mandible, sees his fortune disappear when the dollar is replaced as the world's reserve currency. His adult children and grandchildren, who assumed they would never need to worry about money, find themselves competing for food and shelter. Shriver uses the economic premise to explore contemporary anxieties about debt, the fragility of prosperity, and what happens when assumptions about entitlement and security prove unfounded. The novel is not optimistic about human nature under stress, depicting how quickly civilized behavior gives way to hoarding and exploitation. Some critics found the book's politics—skeptical of government and sympathetic to libertarian survivalism—heavy-handed. But as a thought experiment about economic vulnerability and the American faith in perpetual prosperity, The Mandibles offers unsettling provocation.