- #We need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver series#
- #We need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver free#
The narrative, which leads with quickening and horrifying inevitability to the moment when Kevin massacres seven of his schoolmates and a teacher at his upstate New York high school, is told as a series of letters from Eva to an apparently estranged Franklin, after Kevin has been put in a prison for juvenile offenders. The later birth of a sister who is his opposite in every way, deeply affectionate and fragile, does nothing to help, and Eva always suspects his role in an accident that befalls little Celia. From the start Eva is ambivalent about him, never sure if she really wanted a child, and he is balefully hostile toward her only good-old-boy Franklin, hoping for the best, manages to overlook his son's faults as he grows older, a largely silent, cynical, often malevolent child. Eva Khatchadourian is a smart, skeptical New Yorker whose impulsive marriage to Franklin, a much more conventional person, bears fruit, to her surprise and confessed disquiet, in baby Kevin. A gifted journalist as well as the author of seven novels, she brings to her story a keen understanding of the intricacies of marital and parental relationships as well as a narrative pace that is both compelling and thoughtful. Counterpoint, $25 (416p) ISBN 1-58243-267-8Ī number of fictional attempts have been made to portray what might lead a teenager to kill a number of schoolmates or teachers, Columbine style, but Shriver's is the most triumphantly accomplished by far. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN Lionel Shriver. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review. A novel so compelling, so original, as to warrant being read again and over again.A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. Fewer still attain that status within their lifetimes. When Shriver delivers the final coup de grâce, a plot twist so spiky, so outrageous, that it cuts the novel out from under our feet, it's almost a relief.įew novels are considered classics.
And too late do we realise we have become as voyeuristic as the characters who dance between the covers. Too late, we realise the internal questions within in the novel, the nature of the relationships laid semi-bare, are being echoed by our external reactions to what we're reading. (We can be reasonably sure that she is factually truthful, but there are other kinds of lying: the distortions of interpretation, the distortions of omission.) We don't want to lose faith in her, but as the letters continue, grudgingly we're forced to accept that Eva might have her own reasons for painting her son blacker than he is. Plausible, charming, but not always truthful. Worse, she's that creature beloved of novelists, the unreliable narrator. Little by little we start to realise that Eva – our friend, our co-conspirator – is not necessarily to be trusted. Is it Eva's fault or Franklin's? Was it inevitable? Nature versus nurture, too little maternal love or too much, the old familiar questions. We think we're being asked to decide who's to blame, that there is a moment when all the death and destruction could have been averted. Even as we're learning the story of Eva and Franklin's relationship, as we meet their son, Kevin, then their daughter, Celia, we believe we are on top of things. This is one of the many ways that Shriver is so skilful, so tricksy. Already, without realising, we are taking sides. Franklin seems duller, more measured, limited by his desire for a domestic life with picket fence and clapperboard dog. Eva is independent, interesting, someone we might like to know. The tone is chatty, intimate, a dialogue between a woman and her, we assume, estranged husband. The story is told as a series of letters from Eva Khatchadourian, Kevin's mother, to his father, Franklin. Most of all, it's about love and the failure of love, about the black lines we paint around our own silhouettes.
#We need to talk about kevin by lionel shriver free#
But poke beneath the surface, and immediately it's clear that "Kevin" is not about that one singular act – or, rather, not only about that Thursday – but actually an immensely complex and subtle layered novel about storytelling and lies, about blame and free will, about the choices we make. The story of a teenage boy who, Columbine style, goes on a rampage, slaughtering classmates, teachers, others. It was published in 2005 and won the Orange Prize for Fiction that year. At first glance, it's an unlikely book to have achieved such acclaim and so quickly.
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