A thickish book, 400 pages, and smaller print than is currently used for many popular paperbacks, which made it a little awkward for reading in bed. This probably contributed to the slow start I made on this book...That and the self-obsessed soul-searching that Eva indulges in when tryingto decide whether or not to start a family.Synopsis from Amazon:
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.
Once Kevin arrived, however, and we start to see the differences emerging between Eva and husband Franklin as they try to relate to their son, the story began to hold my attention more and more.
Eventually, I was reading late into the night, which I have not done for quite some time, and read the last couple of chapters in a moving car (which is risky, as it makes me travel sick!).
Although we know before we start what Kevin has done to be imprisoned, it is the gradual erosion of trust between the parents, and the disintigration of the family that is compelling. Those last few chapters really took me by surprise, and I felt quite moved by the ending.
Thoroughly recommended.
