We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver was the winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2005. 

Apparently I read this book in 2012? And I even wrote about it here. My original review is:

No, no we don't need to talk about Kevin.  While I thought the words crafted on the page of this book were beautiful, the pacing was horrible.  Long and long and long with relatively little payoff for the many unnecessary pages.  But it is a thought-provoking book.  Are some people just born assholes?  How much are we to blame when those around us go off the rails?  Do parents have a responsibility to their children forever and ever - should maternal and paternal love be unconditional? Is there a system in place to help those who seemingly don't want help?  I guess I'm not sold on this book, but I do think Shriver is amazing.

I think I stand by this review. This book is Very Long and can be Very Boring. But it's also an interesting perspective and a very topical subject matter.

So, what we have here is a series of letters from a wife to her missing husband about their son Kevin, who we soon learn was a school shooter. This grapples with what, if anything, this mother could have done to prevent her son's actions. It also grapples with the aftermath, when this woman and her son are household names.  

Huh.  Well, it's not a particularly memorable book in that I honestly didn't know I'd already read this book until I went to Goodreads to link it here!  But the writing is solid and it was a gutsy move to write sympathetically about people who do terrible things. I do think this would be a very good book club book if your book club is up for tough topics. 

3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

...that profusion, replication, popularity wasn’t necessarily devaluing, and that time itself made all things rare. You loved to savor the present tense and were more conscious than anyone I have ever met that its every constituent is fleeting.(page 37)

A true lesson can be learned from this. Sometimes it's crazy to think about what was So. Popular. back in the day and now it's forgotten.

His whole geometry was based on the triangle and yours on the square...(page 114)

I just liked this image. I could clearly see what the author was going for here.

The last thing we want to admit is that the bickering of the playground perfectly presages the machinations of the boardroom, that our social hierarchies are merely an extension of who got picked first for the kickball team, and that grown-ups still get divided into bullies and fatties and crybabies. (page 147)

When I was back in Michigan last month, one of my high school friends and I were chatting about how the true focus in high school should have been on the social scene because we spend so much of our working lives trying to uncover the secret to making co-workers and clients make sense. 

The secret is there is no secret. That is what we really wish to keep from our kids, and its suppression is the true collusion of adulthood, the pact we make, the Talmud we protect. (page 148)

I sometimes joke that I wish there was an adulting manual and I think that's the thing we're really protecting kids from, isn't it? When you're an adult, no one tells you what to do. 

But trying to be a good mother may be as distant from being a good mother as trying to have a good time is from truly having one. (page 195)

Is this analogy fair? I mean, fake it until you make it has worked pretty well for me in social settings. If you go through the motions and do the things, maybe you ARE doing it right. 

...teachers were both blamed for everything that went wrong with kids and turned to for their every salvation. This dual role of scapegoat and savior was downright messianic, but even Jesus was probably paid better. (page 332)

Oh, teachers. So important. So undervalued. 

Words I looked up:

bagatelle (page 11) - a thing of little importance; an easy task

arrogate (page 44) - take or claim (something) without justification

argot (page 45) - the jargon or slang of a particular group or class

pentimento (page 134) - a visible trace of an earlier painting beneath a layer or layers of paint on a canvas

spoliation (page 247) - the act of ruining or destroying something - I guess I didn't realize the vowels would change position!

small-eared elephant shrew (page 279)

Not as cute as I might have thought. Source

logomachy (page 334) - an argument about words

Appearance of the word hat:

Still I kicked myself that you and I had made love the night before and one more evening I had absently slipped that rubber hat around my cervix.(page 48)