We Need to Talk About Kevin

This Title is Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction 2005. Two Years Ago, Eva Khatchadourian's Son, Kevin, Murdered Seven of His Fellow High-School Students, a Cafeteria Worker, and a Popular Algebra Teacher. Because He Was Only Fifteen at the Time of the Killings, He Received a Lenient Sentence and is Now in a Prison for Young Offenders in Upstate New York. Telling the Story of Kevin's Upbringing, Eva Addresses Herself to Her Estranged Husband Through a Series of Letters. Fearing That Her Own Shortcomings May Have Shaped What Her Son Has Become, She Confesses to a Deep, Long-Standing Ambivalence About Both Motherhood in General and Kevin in Particular. How Much is Her Fault? 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.