We need to talk about Kevin: a novel
(Book)

New York : Harper Perennial, 2006.

Book

First Harper Perennial edition.

400, 16 pages ; 21 cm

English

9780062180827, 9780062119049 (pbk.), 006112429X, 9780061124297 (pbk.)

Originally published: New York : Counterpoint, 2003.

Includes an interview with the author and other extras.

Shriver's resonant story of a mother's unsettling quest to understand her teenage son's deadly violence, her own ambivalence toward motherhood, and the explosive link between them reverberates with the haunting power of high hopes shattered by dark realities. Eva never really wanted to be a mother--and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin's horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

Orange Prize, 2005

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