We Need to Talk About Kevin

We Need to Talk About Kevin is a 2003 novel by Lionel Shriver, published by Serpent's Tail, about a fictional school massacre. It is written from the first person perspective of the teenage killer's mother, Eva Khatchadourian, and documents her attempt to come to terms with her psychopathic son Kevin and the murders he committed, as told in a series of letters from Eva to her husband. The novel, Shriver's seventh, won the 2005 Orange Prize, a UK-based prize for female authors of any country writing in English. In 2011 the novel was adapted into a film. Plot Even before her son Kevin was born, Eva Khatchadourian struggled with parenthood and a sense of ambivalence about becoming a mother. Owing to the fact that Kevin was a difficult infant and child, she gave up her successful career as a writer and publisher of travel guides in order to concentrate on raising him. Something has gone wrong, however, because her son has developed sinister psychopathic traits, though his father, Franklin Plaskett, refuses to acknowledge the problem. As the situation turns catastrophic, Eva tries to figure out where she and Franklin went wrong. In the wake of a school massacre committed by the 15-year-old Kevin, Eva begins writing letters to Franklin in November 2000. She reflects candidly on the history of her relationship with her husband and the events of Kevin's life up to the killings. She also relates her current life: she was involved in both her son's criminal trial and a civil action against her (for parental negligence) brought by the mother of one of her son's victims. Eva sold the family home to pay for legal expenses, but in order to be near Claverack Juvenile Correctional Facility where Kevin is incarcerated, she still lives in the same town in which she remains shunned by the community. She regularly visits Kevin in prison, wherein they have a cold relationship.