We Need To Talk About Kevin
When a friend says they're not sure if they want to have children, respond jokingly (sort of): "Have you read We Need to Talk About Kevin?" When Lionel Shriver's book first came out, it went viral in 2003. Women would ride their bikes through the streets of New York with it in their baskets, passing it on to their friends. It encapsulated an entire generation living in the aftermath of Columbine and other mass school shootings, questioning the role of nature versus nurture in those tragedies.
The plot revolves around Eva, an American woman who never wanted to be a mother. After her son Kevin is born, she struggles to bond with him and wonders if something is wrong with him. Years later, after Kevin commits a heinous crime, Eva is left to pick up the pieces and ponder how Kevin came to be such a monster.
Kevin Khatchadourian, Eva Khatchadourian's son, murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher two years ago. Eva now tells the story of how Kevin came to be Kevin in a series of letters to her absent husband.
She admits to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about motherhood in general and Kevin in particular, fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become. How much of it is her fault? When did everything go so wrong—or was it ever 'right' at all?
Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing the horrifying tableau of adolescent carnage as a metaphor for a larger tragedy—the tragedy of a country where everything works, no one goes hungry, and nothing can be bought except a sense of purpose.
Author: Lionel Shriver
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/We-Need-Talk-About-Kevin/dp/0062119044/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
