TBR: We Need to Talk about Kevin
When I initially heard about We Need to Talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver, I had no interest in reading it. It’s the story of a teenage mass murderer, as told by his mother in a series of letters to his father, and I just didn’t want to go there. I figured there are enough horror stories in the newspaper that I have to read, why should I read fiction about a Columbine-style massacre?
Then I read flea’s heartbreaking review of the book, and picked it up on my next library trip. I’m glad I did, as I thought it excellent and thought-provoking, even if it did work its way into my dreams for a couple of nights.
The biggest theme of the book is our desire to find causes for everything — and preferable, someone to blame. In an odd way, I was reminded of Stephen Mitchell’s introduction to his translation of Job. Mitchell argues that both Job and his "friends" are stuck in contradictory syllogisms. Job argues "I am a good person, bad things are happening to me, therefore God is unjust." His friends argue "God is just, bad things are happening to Job, therefore Job must have sinned." Mitchell suggests that the Voice from the Whirlwind teaches us that "Job is a good person, bad things are happening to him, God is just." No therefores.
Eva Khatchadourian’s neighbors blame her for Kevin’s sociopathy. The parents of one of his victims sue her in a civil case, arguing that Eva was a bad mother, Kevin is a murderer, and therefore Eva is to blame. At her lawyer’s insistence, Eva’s defense in the case was to argue that she was a good mother, and therefore couldn’t be to blame. But in We Need to Talk about Kevin, Eva makes a much more disturbing case, admitting her many failures as a mother, but arguing that nonetheless, she was not responsible for her son’s actions. No therefores.
The chilling part of the book, what makes it a horror story, is Eva’s insistence that even as an infant and toddler, Kevin’s actions are deliberately chosen to hurt others — especially Eva herself. She believes that his constant crying as an infant, his destruction of her belongings, his delayed potty training are all designed to torture her. As he gets older, she blames him for a series of incidents of increasing magnitude in which things go very badly for classmates, neighbors, his sister, a teacher.
If Eva’s perceptions are accurate, Kevin is indeed a character out of a horror movie, clever and evil, beyond anyone’s control but his own. But if Eva is wrong, she’s a monstrous figure as well, projecting her ambivalence about motherhood onto the innocent child and treating age-appropriate behavior as a crime. Her husband is duly horrified when she tries to convince him of Kevin’s malignant nature, seeing her, not him, as the freak of nature. And so Eva is further isolated, helpless to prevent the tragedies that she and the reader both see coming.
I am struck that, in spite of all of Eva’s protestations to the contrary, flea still believes that she’s a good mother, pointing out that Eva "gives up everything she ever loved, and all of her time and energy and focus trying to crack the impenetrable shell of a hostile, sullen, sociopathic child." I’m uncomfortable with sacrifice as the right measure of maternal quality. Moreover, Eva would say that those are all the motions that she went through to play the role of the good mother, precisely because she was missing something underneath. And she argues that Kevin always knew the difference.
August 16th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
The section flea quotes sure shows a woman not responding rationally to her problems, however real they were. When 4-year-old Kevin pours ink into his squirt gun and decorates the study in Late Pollock, she takes the gun away and stomps it with her expensive shoes, ruining them. Ok, it was a bad day, and a bad moment — but we’ve all had kids make messes. I would understand wanting to impress him with how bad he had been, but ruining her own shoes is not the best way to do that. She just plain flipped out.
She seems to have gotten caught in a dominance game with him, which is always a lose-lose proposition. And she seems to view him as able to keep a sort of self-control unlikely at that age, however evil he may have been (” ‘now it’s special‘, he said quietly”).
So, tho I’m not big on blame-the-mommy, I really wonder if she contributed to his problems.
August 16th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Well, it’s fiction, so there’s no “real” answer.
But what made the book work for me is that I found myself constantly slipping back and forth as to whether Eva is a reliable narrator.
August 17th, 2005 at 10:02 pm
Yeah, I was really bothered by flea’s review also–I know flea is (very understandably) dealing with a hard situation, but is it that hard to see things from the kid’s POV instead of assuming that Eva’s the mommy so she must be Good and Heroic?
Mitchell suggests that the Voice from the Whirlwind teaches us that “Job is a good person, bad things are happening to him, God is just.” No therefores.
Bad things are not ‘happening’ to Job; God is allowing these bad things to happen to prove a point with Satan. How can God be just?
August 21st, 2005 at 12:32 am
I think you’ve got it. The book seduces you into Eva’s point of view, whereby Kevin is an innate monster, yet when you stop to think, you realize it is indeed quite possible that her husband is right and it is all Eva’s fault. And of course presumably the reality, if fiction can have a reality, is somewhere in between that we’ll never quite identify–like so many problems whose causes we can never definitively identify. The other thing about the book is that it is so beautifully written–I found myself marking phrases and sentences that were just perfect.
Elizabeth, your interests and experiences and concerns always resonate with me–and I took a course with David Montgomery too, way back in the day!
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:27 am
Happy Families
Potty update: Wilder is still in pullups and I am practicing an aggressive form of not caring. I am firmly, one hundred percent committed right now to the idea that It Does Not Matter. We will figure this one out
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:31 am
Happy Families
Potty update: Wilder is still in pullups and I am practicing an aggressive form of not caring. I am firmly, one hundred percent committed right now to the idea that It Does Not Matter. We will figure this one out
August 22nd, 2005 at 11:39 pm
I don’t really know you guys and just stumbled across this site, but then I went back and found flea’s review. It sounds like she and I had a very similar reaction to the book.
You see, I have two kids who are very slightly on the autistic spectrum, which we didn’t find out until they were in elementary school. All I know is that I could have stroked my belly forever when I was pregnant with them and smiled and gone all soft and fuzzy, but ultimately it wouldn’t have helped. Somehow I never managed to produce the kinds of kids who cuddle up close to you, who look you in the eye, who smile, who don’t treat you like furniture.
I did the whole thing — Dr. Sears, cosleeping, the family bed, attachment parenting, baby-wearing — and couldn’t figure out how despite all that, I never felt like I bonded with my son. And for about seven years, I thought the problem was all me! If only I was softer, fuzzier, not so harsh. . . Then my child would smile, make eye contact, not drag other people around by their hands like dogs.
I remembered wondering when I read the book if Eva’s child wasn’t perhaps also autistic. The point is, from very early on, she felt rejected. She felt like he didn’t like her. That poisoned their relationship, and given that they never addressed it, it did irreparable damage to both of them.
Yes, parents are supposed to be selfless, never asking for anything in return, just giving, giving, giving — but poeple whose kids don’t have special needs don’t know what it’s like to never get a hand-drawn card, or a picture, or a hug in return. It wears you down. It’s human nature to expect some response when you send love out into the universe, or out into your family. Think about it, if she had been married to someone who treated her the way that Kevin did, she would have divorced him, and no one would have blamed her.
She didn’t ruin kevin. That’s too simplistic. Way too simplistic.
Strangely enough, I had never heard of the device of the ‘faulty narrator’ and kind of gullibly believed Eva all the way through, until there were too many inconsistencies I couldn’t reconcile. Then I went back and read reviews on Amazon.com.
Thanks for listening.
August 23rd, 2005 at 3:54 pm
Mary, thanks for commenting.
Even if Eva’s view of events, I’d never say that she “ruined” Kevin or that the murders are her fault. Because there are millions of people who are imperfectly parented — in many cases, hideously parented — and who don’t decide to bring a crossbow to school (or a gun to work) one day.
You make a good point about the challenges of parenting a child who doesn’t respond to affection with affection. I think I want to pick up this point in a separate post.
September 25th, 2005 at 1:31 pm
“…flea still believes that she’s a good mother, pointing out that Eva “gives up everything she ever loved, and all of her time and energy and focus trying to crack the impenetrable shell of a hostile, sullen, sociopathic child.” I’m uncomfortable with sacrifice as the right measure of maternal quality.”
______________________
I’m uncomfortable with “sacrifice as the right measure of maternal quality” as well, as people who have read my blog know, or should know, by now. However, it turns out that parenting a disabled child demands a great deal of sacrifice on every level, and pointing out that a willingness to make that sacrifice is a sign of a good parent- even if you don’t want to – shouldn’t imply that sacrifice is the *only* thing. Or at least, it shouldn’t if one isn’t interesting in polarizing the issue. Which I guess isn’t possible, even if it’s fictitious mothers we’re talking about.
And as Mary said, it’s difficult to see things from a child’s point of view if they give you nothing in the way of emotional feedback. As Mary can also tell you, finding this difficult should not be mistaken for not loving one’s child or wanting what’s best for them. If you also remember from the book, Eva ends the story by telling the reader that her home is open to him when he is released from prison. I still think this is the strongest, most accurate novel I’ve ever read of detailing a woman’s surface ambivilance toward her child with love underneath it all.
September 25th, 2005 at 9:16 pm
flea, I’m glad you commented.
I agree totally that sacrifice is *a* sign of a good parent. But it’s pretty much the only thing that Eva has going for her as a parent in *Kevin*. I don’t think she’s as bad a parent as she thinks she is, but I don’t think she’s a particularly good parent. She does what a good parent is “supposed to do” — and then some, at the end, but (in my reading) without any underlying affection.
I’m intrigued that you saw Eva as truly loving Kevin, in spite of her “surface ambivalence.” That wasn’t my reading of the book — but I think Shriver very deliberately leaves open multiple interpretations of Eva and her relationship with Kevin. I agree that it’s a fascinating book.
September 25th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
What irritates me about internet discussions, and internet discussions about mothers in particular, is the urge to flare up and exaggerate your “opponent’s” claims instead of disagreeing in a reasonable manner. Yes, it makes me short-tempered.
Translating my opinions of “Eva loves her child because she gave up her life to care for him” into “she’s the mommy and therefore is good and heroic” and “flea thinks the measure of a good mother is sacrifice” indicates that the reader is either 1.)stupid or 2.)trying to pick a fight over a fictional character. Since I know you and the other posters are not 1.), it leads me to believe you are 2.), which I find annoying and juvenile. You think a mother of a disabled child who constantly feels in over her head and feels like she wants to escape to the work world that gave her a feeling of validation and success makes her “not a bad mother, but not a good one either,” then fine. Whatever. Personal experience causes me to disagree with you.
I have an Asperger’s child and feel like I’m a failure for not properly bonding with him every minute of every day. I think Shriver nailed that feeling hard. I’ve certainly had moments where I’ve “lost” it with him, just like the ink incident (except it was his own shit, I quoted that part of the book because I experienced that incident first hand, and I lost it, too. I locked my son in an empty room for an hour while he screamed and cried and I screamed and cried and scrubbed his room down with bleach), and losing it doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s usually the end result of a series of upsetting events. “Losing it” doesn’t make you a bad mother, either. The reason why I think she’s a good mother is because I judged her actions and read the guilt between the lines. She’s a good mother who unflinchingly recorded her bad moments without glossing them over or making excuses for them.
Also, the idea that parents of disabled children can’t or don’t try to look at things from their child’s point of view is absurd. Shriver put that into the book as well, remember, with Eva’s constantly trying to connect and running up against that wall Kevin kept throwing up. Remember how she nostalgically dwelled on the time he was sick and she lay in bed with him and read him stories and he opened up to her? If she was a bad mother who didn’t love him, why would she care so much about that? Why would she care if he went on tv while in prison and bragged about what a great mother she was?
There’s so much in there that expresses her hopes and her love, but most people unsurprisingly focus on the “refrigerator mother” aspect of it and disregard the evidence that indicates otherwise.
September 25th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
I forgot to reference Charlotte Moore’s excellent book George & Sam “http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0141014539/qid=1127700872/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9202204-4220816?v=glance&s=books&n=507846” (link). Moore’s two sons, ages 9 and 12, are profoundly autistic, and she writes that very often, they are not likeable people. She brings up an incident where her mother fell down a flight of stairs and broke her leg while she was watching them, and when she called them and asked them to help her, they said, “No!” and ran past her out to the garden. She lay there for about three hours before Moore came home. Now, she asks, does that sound likeable? Yet you don’t doubt that Moore loves them. At least, I don’t.
September 26th, 2005 at 10:07 am
here is a strikingly interesting article by Shriver about her choice, and the choices of a number of her friends, to be childless.. we had three, and yes, they are messy and troublesome sometimes, and almost all the time we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,6000,1571998,00.html
October 15th, 2005 at 12:42 pm
Like Flea, I have a kid on the autism spectrum.
Her feelings and experiences reflect my own.
Before my kid came into this world, I would have thought that the parents of any kid who behaved that way must have been depraved.
I would have been wrong. Depraved parenting is horrible – but some kids challenge even the best parents. The George & Sam incident referenced by Flea – add to its horror the fact that it wasn’t out of the blue, it was just the way those kids *are*.
How are parents supposed to deal with that sort of mind-blindness? What is the RIGHT way?
October 15th, 2005 at 3:09 pm
Hmmm, I’m getting a feeling I’m not communicating my thoughts clearly, given the comments.
I am NOT saying that I think Eva is a bad mother because of the bad things that Kevin does. I do think that the fact that she attributes Kevin’s behavior, even as an infant and toddler, to *malevolence* rather than either to normal child behavior or to a disability, is more than a little disturbing.
I think it sidesteps the problem of evil to only consider the possibility that Kevin is suffering from some sort of disorder in that spectrum.
October 16th, 2005 at 5:38 pm
Elizabeth, I’d like to formally apologize to you for getting pissy last month. Obviously, this is not a topic that is easy for me to discuss, since it is very, very close to me.
My son is not, and has never been malevolent, but when he went to a preschool for children with behavioral disabilities, I did see one child that, quite frankly, scared the shit out of me. When I realized that two days out of the week it was just this kid and my kid together all morning with no other students, I pulled Alex out of school on those two days. He came across as extremely malevolent, (and was extemely violent) and I was convinced, looking at this 4 year old child, that he was going to kill someone someday. I wouldn’t go so far as to use the word “evil,” but I have to wonder about the thoughts of someone who lived with him and cared for him full time. (I never spoke to his parents – obviously they appeared to be involved and were actively trying to get him help.)
I am unsure if Shriver was using the word “evil” as a device to heighten the tension of a horror novel or if she was trying to realistically portray what Eva felt.
October 16th, 2005 at 5:41 pm
And if you get a chance, go look at my comments section on the Kevin post. Someone totally freaked on me for saying that Getup Grrl at Chez Miscarriage wrote a post that Eva K. might have found funny.
Yikes.
August 20th, 2006 at 6:58 pm
I do think Eva is a mother who should NOT have been a mother because she had decided before her child was born that she did not like it. This is made clear in the book. Whatever response her child took after birth would have been viewed in the negative, therefore exaggerated and after time, the child would internalise this and respond accordingly. The most chilling aspect of this book, for me, was how much his mother loved him after the murders, how much she wanted him to come home and provide him with more than a room. Prior to the murders she provided him with nothing but an empty space.