We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lionel Shriver)

I'd read mentions of this book in various places, and eventually picked it up from the library after someone at book club raved about it. So I had a vague idea about the plot - mother of a boy who shoots up a high school writes letters to her husband because, you know, they need to talk about Kevin.

We Need To Talk About Kevin, however, is much more about his mother than it is about himself. One interesting aspect of this book, which I initially found frustrating and then thoroughly enjoyed, was its unreliable narrator. Eva finds Kevin has a disturbing personality even as a baby - she finds him cold, uninterested in the world, and sees his refusal to drink from her breasts as a personal rejection of her. Some part of me itched at this point to know the full picture - is Eva suffering from post-natal depression, stress, what? However, WNTTAK is so well written that such thoughts quickly disappeared as I became completely drawn into Eva's world.

WNTTAK is really about Eva's intense guilt and grief over her son, and while he is the character around which the narrative focuses, we never really get to know him. We only see him through Eva's eyes, and consequently learn much more about her than we do about him.

I found the last half of WNTTAK extremely disturbing, given that the descriptions of violence increase, and felt rather sick once I had closed the book (despite the somewhat optimistic ending - as optimistic as such an ending can be, I suppose). But I am cursed with a ridiculously visual imagination - don't let the prospect stop you from reading the book. It really was a pleasure to read, so wonderfully well crafted. I definitely want to read more of Shriver's work. Five out of five.