Author: Lionel Shriver
ISBN: 1852424672
DDC: 813.54
See also: Library Thing; Orange Prize winner 2005; The Guradian
Dear Franklin,
I’m unsure why one trifling incident this afternoon has moved me to write to you. But since we’ve been separated, I may most miss coming home to deliver the narrative curiosities of my day, the way a cat might lay mice at your feet: the small, humble offerings that couples proffer after foraging in separate backyards.
Just before his 16th birthday Kevin Khatchadourian murders 9 people; 7 students at his high school, a teacher and a worker in the cafeteria. This is Eva’s, his mother’s version of his life. Of her life prior to Kevin’s birth and how her son changed her life. Told through letter to her husband, Franklin, the novel reveals all her thoughts and suspicions. And how the aftermath of the killings have utterly transformed her life, and who she is.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a huge fan of first person narratives. Too often they can be a lazy way of writing. And it is all too easy for the author to include to much detail, or too little. Here, however, it works well. We meet Kevin at his birth and get to see him grow and develop as a person, until that fateful Thursday. And because we are aware of what will happen, as is Eva, she pays special attention to clues that might have alerted her. Anything that might have tipped her off.
Tags: 813.54, 9 Stars, biased pov, death, diary, first person narrator, Lionel Shriver, mass shootings, murderer, school shootings, unreliable narrator, We Need To Talk About Kevin, well-written
