Explanation of the book from Goodreads. Book Cover. Author Biography. Lionel Shriver. Shriver's Writing. Shriver. More Information About Lionel Shriver. Lionel Shriver (born May 18, 1957) is an American journalist and author.
Early life and education[edit] Shriver was born Margaret Ann Shriver on May 18, 1957 in Gastonia, North Carolina, to a deeply religious family (her father is a Presbyterian minister). At age 15, she informally changed her name from Margaret Ann to Lionel because she did not like the name she had been given, and as a tomboy felt that a conventionally male name fitted her better.[1] Shriver was educated at Barnard College, Columbia University (BA, MFA). She has lived in Nairobi, Bangkok and Belfast, and currently in London. Personal life[edit] Writing[edit] Shriver won the 2005 Orange Prize for her eighth published novel, We Need to Talk About Kevin, a thriller and close study of maternal ambivalence, and the role it might have played in the title character's decision to murder nine people at his high school.
“I’m often asked did something happen around the time I wrote Kevin. Activism[edit] Nationality[edit] Novels[edit] More Information About We Need to Talk About Kevin. Plot[edit] Eva's narration takes the form of letters written after the massacre to her presumably estranged husband, Franklin Plaskett. In these letters, she details her relationship with her husband well before and leading up to their son's conception, followed by the events of Kevin's life up to the school massacre, and her thoughts concerning their relationship. She also admits to a number of events that she tried to keep secret, such as when she lashed out and broke Kevin's arm in a sudden fit of rage. The novel also shows Eva visiting Kevin in prison. These scenes portray their cold, adversarial relationship. Kevin's behavior throughout the book closely resembles that of a sociopath, although reference to this condition is sparse and left mostly up to the reader's imagination.
As Kevin's behavior worsens, Franklin becomes more defensive of him, convinced that his son is a healthy, normal boy and that there is a reasonable explanation for everything he does. Major themes[edit] The sins of the mother. In “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” Lionel Shriver’s seventh novel, 16-year-old Kevin Khatchadourian locks seven teenagers, an English teacher and a cafeteria worker in the high school gym and systematically offs every one of them — with a crossbow, no less.
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare. Kevin’s not only a killer, and a chillingly creative one, but he’s joined the exhausting litany of troubled white boys taking out their angst on innocent peers; he’s the grisly topic of nightly talk shows. And so are his parents. After all, at some point between hanging a mobile above Kevin’s crib and shepherding him to school dances, something went horribly wrong. What went wrong is what Eva, Kevin’s mother, tries to figure out in a series of letters to her “estranged” husband Franklin, a year or so after their son unleashed his not-so-secret rage on their quaint, affluent New York suburb (Kevin is very upset when Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris steal his spotlight a few weeks later). Are you married? Author Interview with Lionel Shriver from HarperCollins Publishers. We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) We Need To Talk About Kevin - Official Trailer.