We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver had to fight to have this published. Because by all accounts nobody wanted to. Too gloomy, the publishers said. Too pessimistic. Too unsympathetic. Who’d believe there could be boys like Kevin? Or his parents? Or even his little sister?

The more I think about it, the less I think there are. Travel-loving mother. Bonehead father, without a scrap of imagination. Scaredy-cat little sister, frightened of her own shadow. And finally scheming, malevolent, murderous Kevin.

I don’t think they’re meant to be real. They’re types. Exaggerated types, in a story of marriage and children that isn’t all puppies and sunshine, and which doesn’t build to a climax of acceptance and ultimate happiness. This is motherhood as hell. With no happy endings.

Not surprising, then, that publishers shied away from it. It’s an attack on a sacred institution. Yet one that more than 1,000,000 readers – eventually - went out and bought. If that isn’t food for thought, I don’t know what is.