We Need to Talk About Kevin: A Novel

"Impossible to put down. . . . Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.” — Boston Globe

Acclaimed author Lionel Shriver's gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry

Shriver’s 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 reverberates with the haunting power of high hopes shattered by dark realities.

Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

Like Shriver’s charged and incisive later novels, including So Much for That and The Post-Birthday World, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a piercing, unforgettable, and penetrating exploration of violence, family ties, and responsibility.

The gripping international bestseller about motherhood gone awry

Eva never really wanted to be a mother—and certainly not the mother of the unlovable boy who murdered seven of his fellow high school students, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher who tried to befriend him, all two days before his sixteenth birthday. Now, two years later, it is time for her to come to terms with marriage, career, family, parenthood, and Kevin’s horrific rampage in a series of startlingly direct correspondences with her estranged husband, Franklin. Uneasy with the sacrifices and social demotion of motherhood from the start, Eva fears that her alarming dislike for her own son may be responsible for driving him so nihilistically off the rails.

“Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy—the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose.” - Forbes

“Scathingly honest and often witty.” - Salon.com

“Sometimes searing . . . impossible to put down . . . brutally honest. . . . Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Maybe we all do.” - Boston Globe

“Thoughtful and deeply disquieting. . . . Only after closing the book with a shocking and masterful succession of revelations does Shriver quietly emerge from the darkness, allowing the true bond between mother and son to come finally into view.” - The Onion

“Impossible to put down.” - Boston Globe

“Impressive. . . . It’s always a challenge for a novelist to take on front-page events. A guilt-stricken Eva Khatchadourian digs into her own history, her son’s, and the nation’s . . . and her fierceness and honesty sustain the narrative.” - New York Times

“An underground feminist hit.” - New York Observer

“Ms. Shriver takes a calculated risk . . . but the gamble pays off as she strikes a tone of compelling intimacy.” - Wall Street Journal

“Furiously imagined.” - Seattle Times

“A slow, magnetic descent into hell that is as fascinating as it is disturbing.” - Cleveland Plain Dealer

“Shriver handles this material, with its potential for cheap sentiment and soap opera plot, with rare skill and sense.” - Newark Star Ledger

“Powerful [and] harrowing.” - Entertainment Weekly