The Book Tower

I finished Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin with a sigh; I found it a disturbing, haunting and exhausting novel. It made me address a lot of difficult issues; mainly the huge and heavy responsibility of the parent. Who can justifiably hold their hand up and say that they are fully qualified for the job?

There is a point in the novel where Eva, the narrator, tells the story of a mother who leaves her small child in the bath for three minutes to answer the door. In that short time the child suffers a fatal accident; the mother – dutiful as a parent for all the other minutes in the day is now forever tortured by this terrible act of neglect. How many of us have been in a situation where this could have happened? How many of us make mistakes in the protection and nurturing of our children? How many of those mistakes are irreversible? Who do we blame when we get it wrong? What do we do when it really goes wrong? Let’s face it, “I blame it on the parents” is an often repeated cliché we’re all used to.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is composed of a series of letters by Eva to her estranged and unresponsive husband Franklin. Their son, now sixteen, has committed several murders in a single act of aggression which Eva sees in her resigned view as another instalment in the depressing series of similar events in the USA. Eva’s voice is an exhausting one because it drilled right into me, nagging away to make me decide whether or not I could or should condone her. Ever felt guilty about something and constantly gone over events trying to iron them out and persuade yourself that you’re blameless? This is what goes through Eva’s mind; she also picks over incidents in Kevin’s early childhood to discover clues to why he has turned out the way he has. The vandalism of Eva’s maps, the cycling accident of a neighbour, bugs in his sister’s backpack, even the failed attempts at potty training – are they all examples of a dangerous individual?

For me, We Need to Talk About Kevin was the literary equivalent of a hangover. It took a while to get over and it left an unpleasant taste in my mouth. It has a truly shocking outcome, but I’m glad I can now rid myself of Eva’s torment, a privileged position compared to the other tortured Evas of this world.

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More novels lay scattered on the bedroom floor, abandoned and unread. Now one title has now saved me from the bookless mess. I wasn’t aware that we had a copy of We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver but there it was, already yellowing on the shelf.

At last a book I know I will finish. It’s inspired me to invest in some new purchases, which include:

• The Falling Man by Don DeLillo
• The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
• A Curious Earth by Gerard Woodward

The first three choices are no surprises if you’ve read any of my recent posts. Woodward’s novel is the third in a trilogy that began with August and continued with I’ll Go To Bed At Noon. Both excellent, so I’m looking forward to this one.

I just hope they arrrive in time for next week’s camping trip.

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From Booking Through Thursday:

It happens even to the best readers from time to time… you close the cover on the book you’re reading and discover, to your horror, that there’s nothing else to read. Either there’s nothing in the house, or nothing you’re in the mood for. Just, nothing that “clicks.” What do you do?? How do you get the reading wheels turning again?

It’s happening now. Help.

After a really good run I’ve suddenly become unsettled with my reading. Nothing is clicking. I tried and failed with Love in the Time of Cholera; it’s a decent enough book but I always found myself staring out of the window whenever I attempted to read it. I also abandoned American Psycho. I just didn’t like it, no matter how much the blurb on the back of the book tried to persuade me otherwise. All this – just in the last week – has send me into a downward spiral, scared to pick up another book in case I make it three failures in a row.

I’ve been here before but thankfully not very often. The mood will suddenly change and I will spot a couple of books on the shelf that grab my attention, read an enthusiastic review or succumb to a spending spree. I might even draw the blinds and get back to Love in the Time of Cholera.

The wheels will turn again, I’m sure of it.

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