The novel makes us think, long after we finish it. This is one hundred percent correct as far as We Need To Talk About Kevin is concerned. As a great writer of my native language said: 'The real story is on the unwritten pages' that is, it is the gaps, the pauses and the undercurrents between the characters (which the reader is forced to complete or imagine) which is the mark of great literature. I am a little apprehensive as to how I should begin this review: there are so many things to talk about.įirst of all, I consider this to be truly a great work of literature, not simply 'fiction'. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with Kevin’s horrific rampage, all in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin.Ī piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence and responsibility, a book that the Boston Globe describes as “impossible to put down,” is a stunning examination of how tragedy affects a town, a marriage, and a family. Did her internalized dislike for her own son shape him into the killer he’s become? How much is her fault?

But Eva was always uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood. Neither nature nor nurture exclusively shapes a child's character. And certainly not the mother of a boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much–adored teacher in a school shooting two days before his sixteenth birthday.

Reilly, this 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 remains terrifyingly prescient.Įva never really wanted to be a mother. The inspiration for the film starring Tilda Swinton and John C.

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