We Need To Talk About Kevin (Shriver): nature vs nurture

"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."

To sum this book up - heartbreaking and terrifying.

Shriver is a clever writer, her style is relatively simple but is so vivid and cleverly constructed. Every now and again she'll throw in a phrase or sentence that makes you stop and want to shake her hand. I was hooked from that opening sentence above.

The the novel, for those who haven't read it, is written as a collection of letters to her husband. It's a great technique that makes you think about all the times you've stopped yourself during an extreme moment and thought 'how would I tell this story later?'. It also allows her to dose the whole book in a sense of impending doom fitting for the subject matter. Which is dire. The main character Eva's son Kevin is imprisoned for shooting dead nine classmates. She lives with the notion that she always thought there was something wrong with the boy, but what do you do when it's your son? This is the nature vs nurture argument writ large. Rest assured you'll need a big hug and a stiff drink when you've finished reading this one.

About halfway through I'm afraid I started to lose interest, describing it to my boyfriend as like The Omen, if Damien's so bad and no-one believes her why doesn't she just leave?
But all of that dropped away for the last quarter. Although the story makes no bones about the tragedy in its opening pages, she manages to not let the reader just grow complacent, she keeps reminding them about the consequences, the innocence of the people that were maimed and killed. She saves some terrible surprises for the end. But Eva's narration becomes increasingly unreliable, she remains adamant on things she had done, for which there is no proof. She leaves out parts of the tale until the very end, flooring you when she finally reveals them. And, despite all claims otherwise, she still loves her son.

What stuck me as interesting is after she has finished her story she acknowledges that Kevin was, indeed, still her son. In among the nature/nurture arguments Kevin, who seems irreparably broken earlier in the novel, starts to make sense to his mother. Somehow the experience or the passing two years has brought them closer together, although he was the perpetrator. How she could find time for him when he took so much from her I just couldn't understand. But I suppose she understood him more than anyone, as a child there was nothing he would miss if it was gone. In prison he discovered the importance of his mother. It breaks your heart that Kevin had so much growing up to do when he killed those people and had he just started a MySpace page instead he could have turned into an alright person. He starts repeating his mother's words he mocked as a younger boy. She keeps his bed made, just in case.

It makes the quote on the opening page ring true:

"A child needs your love most when he deserves it least"