Great Reads: We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Quite possibly everybody’s worst nightmare; you slave away at parenthood trying to raise a child who should hopefully become a ‘good person’. Only to find that instead your child encompasses the definition of evil.

We Need to talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver rudely awakens us to this terrifying possibility. This disturbing novel follows the journey Eva Khatchadourian, who tells the story of her son Kevin through letters to her estranged husband. One Thursday afternoon Kevin goes to school and kills seven of his fellow students, a teacher and a cafeteria worker. Eva struggles to carry the burden of this event, and feels she has to deconstruct every moment of Kevin’s upbringing. The whole of America seems to hold her responsible for ‘Thursday’, however as the novel progresses this blame becomes debatable.

Shriver makes us confront the question, are some people just born evil? We Need to Talk About Kevin brings out the nature/nurture debate in full force. Eva’s complete incomprehension at what her son has done is beautifully reflected in this haunting and thought provoking quote.

‘…how was Kevin able to raise the crossbow, point it at Laura’s breastbone, and then really, actually, in time and space squeeze the release? I can only assume the he discovered what I never wish to. That there is no barrier…’

The fragmented sentence structure in this quote highlights Eva’s state of mind. She fails to understand the actions of her own son, despite the intimacy of sharing flesh and blood.

The way that Shriver presents us with the notion of ‘a barrier’ is also a very interesting aspect to the novel. This carries the possibility of another state of being that some human beings can find, where our deepest and darkest thoughts come into fruition.

Upon reading this novel it also becomes apparent that theories of child development such as John Bowlby’s ‘Attachment Theory’ become highly relevant. The reader could also learn to sympathise with Kevin as he is starved of maternal love. From his birth Eva confesses her absence of love for her son.

‘…Minutes wore on, Kevin would yowl, rest limply, and jerk irritably from time to time; I felt the first stirrings of what appallingly, I can only call boredom…’

These moments in the beginning of the novel allow you to feel sympathy for Kevin. This shows Shriver’s intelligence as a writer as he demonstrates that this is perhaps not simply a novel of good and evil.

Whether you learn to sympathise with Eva or Kevin throughout this novel, one cannot deny its tremendous power of making us question the nature of evil itself. Or indeed whether evil actually exists. Perhaps it is as Shriver describes it, simply crossing a ‘barrier’.

This is an incredible novel but perhaps not for the feint hearted. However if you desire a novel that is tense and thought provoking We Need to Talk About Kevin is highly recommended.

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