We Need to Talk About Kevin

Kevin with his bow and arrows, from the film

What do you do as a parent when you know your child is a sociopath? Worse, what if only you know it because he has your spouse or partner snowed? This is the question that drives Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin. A film version came out last year. It's okay, but it focuses more on the question of how you respond after the world learns your child is a sociopath then it does the question of what one does when you're the only one who knows, so I'd strongly recommend the book, or at least the book as a prequel to the film.

Eva is a travel agent, author of a series of books even rougher than the Rough Guide. For her, pregnancy means settling down once and for all, something she is not necessarily ready to do. A significant difference between Shriver's book and the film version of this story, is that the book suggests that Eva's ambivalence about her pregnancy with Kevin is merely a more intense version of an ambivalence experienced by almost every woman, even though most don't admit it, whereas the film depicts her ambivalence as a sign of not wanting a child. But really, what woman doesn't experience the tiniest degree of ambivalence during her first, life-changing pregnancy, no matter how much she wants it? Obviously I can't speak from experience, but I think you'd have to be crazy not to be just a little bit terrified. (But maybe that's just because I'm terrified of being responsible for any creature needier than a cat.)

Eva tries to love Kevin, but he makes it nearly impossible. Lots of babies cry all the time, but he cries to manipulate and antagonize her. She stays at home with him and he cries all day, but when her husband Franklin comes home, Kevin quiets as soon as his father bounces him around a couple of times. As a toddler, he refuses to play. And as a pre-schooler, he seems to learn things on his own almost to spite Eva. He refuses to let her teach him his letters and numbers, then one day shows her with great pride that he has figured out how to read and do math. He insists on wearing diapers well into elementary school, not because he doesn't know how to toilet himself, but because he simply refuses to do so. As a child he hates everything. He has no friends, no interests.

In what is possibly the least responsible parenting decision ever, Eva and Franklin decide to have another child, who turns out to be a perfect little girl. This time Eva experiences all those warm and fuzzy feelings of motherhood, much to Kevin and Franklin's dismay. Naturally, Kevin abuses his sister terribly. She is scared of almost everything, and he takes advantage. He shoves her beloved pet down the garbage disposal, and the first time he's allowed to babysit he pours lye in her eye, leading her to lose it, then accepts all the credit Franklin gives him for so thoughtfully calling 911. Eva knows he's guilty. She's always known it. But she can't prove it, and the little girl is too terrified to rat out the brother who she no doubt thinks will kill her.

In what is possibly the second least responsible parenting decision ever, Eva and Franklin allow Kevin to take up archery. Growing up somewhere were a lot of people took their kids hunting, I've always wondered how they justified taking their screwed up kids off into the woods and teaching them to use weapons. I wondered that even more while reading this book.

In truth, the only "happy" moment in this book--and I mean that very cynically--is the moment when Franklin realizes that Kevin is indeed the sociopath Eva has been warning him of all along--a moment that comes about five seconds before he dies of an arrow through the head. Kevin's sister dies, too, pinned to a target by four arrows. Then he goes to school, locks all his enemies into the gym with some very sophisticated locks, and shoots them one by one.

Possibly the most telling moment in the entire narrative comes when Eva hears that there has been a shooting at the high school. She knows who her son is at heart, but when it comes down to it, she doesn't fear him, she fears for him. She worries that Kevin has been shot, not that he was the shooter.

In the end, she's his mom after all. She stays in their suburb and waits for his release. She rents a house with a bedroom intended for him. These are not acts that I can pretend to understand. All I know is that in the end, she proves Franklin wrong: even after Kevin has shown the whole world who he really is--perhaps especially after he has done so--she wants to be his mother.