We Need To Talk About Kevin

“The good life doesn’t knock on the door. Joy is a job.”

On the surface, Franklin appears to have a better time with Brian and Louise at dinner than Eva. However, she knows that Franklin’s boisterous enthusiasm is, at least in part, false. He hopes that by acting as if he is joyful at dinner, he will feel joy. This is a stark contrast to Kevin’s life. Kevin has no joy and no ability to pretend he does.

“Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment.”

The author sets the novel against the backdrop of the election drama in Florida. In the aftermath of Kevin’s murders, Eva can no longer see the political drama as being of critical importance. The epidemic of school shootings throughout the novel moves the election to the background as the country realizes it is not invincible.

“How lucky we are, when we’re spared what we think we want!”

Eva reminds herself of all the ways in which Franklin was not like the ideal man she always thought she wanted. Even though they are opposites in many ways, he is exactly what she needs. She is grateful that Franklin was not her idealized man and sees that her earlier marriage wish list was naïve and uninformed by reality.

“No offspring could replace you. But if I ever had to miss you, miss you forever, I wanted to have someone to miss you alongside, who would know you if only as a chasm in his life, as you were a chasm in mine.”

Eva imagines life without Franklin one night when he is late coming home. Her thoughts foreshadow the events of the massacre, which will leave her without Franklin. Kevin takes Franklin from her, forcing Eva to experience the chasm in her life without anyone else who misses him since Kevin doesn’t care.

“I thought I needed a change…but no one needs a change for the worse.”

During one of her early visits to Chatham, Eva responds to Kevin’s accusation that she changed her mind about wanting him. It is true that Eva hoped Kevin would bring her a new sense of purpose—another country to visit, as she puts it elsewhere. Parenthood is frightening in that it is irreversible. Once Kevin is born, Eva’s life changes, and the fact that it changes her life for the worse doesn’t make him someone else’s responsibility.

“In the very instant of his birth, I associated Kevin with my own limitations—with not only suffering, but defeat.”

Eva resists an epidural during the birth but regrets the decision. She only begs for the pain blocker once the baby is crowning and it is too late for the intervention. She feels shame for her weakness at that moment and wonders if it was a bad omen for Kevin’s future.

“Even tragedy can be accompanied by a trace of relief. The discovery that heartbreak is indeed heartbreaking consoles us about our humanity.”

Eva’s devastation after the massacre at Kevin’s school validates her feelings in some ways. She has always wondered if she is cold and unloving, a person with less humanity than others. The grief she feels after the tragedy reassures her that she feels grief to the same degree as others.

“Expectations are dangerous when they are both high and unformed.”

Eva recounts her disappointment with her 10th birthday party. She describes it as too ordinary and too imaginable. She compares her disappointment with the ordinariness of motherhood. She could have imagined all the drudgery. Even the happiest parts of motherhood were still mundane.

“The simple adjacency of warm bodies supplies the deepest of animal comfort.”

Eva writes this comment while summarizing her awkward office Christmas party. The quote reveals that the nearness of humans—even those she disagrees with or has nothing in common with—can still be a comfort. Kevin, however, never evoked the warmth or fulfilled that need for her.

“Armenians have a talent for sorrow. You know, she wasn’t even surprised?”

Eva talks about her mother’s reactions to Kevin’s crimes. She and her mother’s Armenian background informs much of their worldview. The Armenia genocide rendered Eva’s mother incapable of shock or optimism. Earlier, Eva says joy is a job. Her mother’s pessimism reinforces the idea that acting joyful is work.

“Nothing is interesting if you are not interested.”

Eva is disappointed to find she can’t enjoy her trip to Africa. Her difficulties at home have made it difficult for her to appreciate the difference between her own life and the lives of unfortunate people she sees abroad. She is less interested in her trip because of the demands on her attention and emotions back at home. She also realizes she is not interesting to Kevin because he is not interested in her.

“Why can’t you let anything with this little guy be fun, or funny?”

Franklin never sees the ugliest sides of Kevin until the book is almost finished. In the restaurant, when Kevin covers his hamburger in salt, ruining it, Franklin insists that he just a boy trying to have fun. Later, he will accuse Eva of always picking on Kevin and sees the restaurant incidents as more evidence that she has bullied him from the beginning.

“Both your parents and your firstborn abhor leisure time. Your son always attacked this antipathy head-on, which involves a certain bravery if you think about it; he was never one to deceive himself that, by merely filling it, he was putting his time to productive use.”

Eva compares Kevin to Franklin’s parents. His parents were industrious and never stopped producing immaculate dinners, shelves, and projects. She says they did not know what life was for other than to be busy. Kevin understands that busyness does not equal productivity or give life meaning.

“In Kevin’s book, unwitnessed disobedience is wasteful.”

Kevin climbs up to get the squirt gun out of the cabinet. He poses theatrically and waits for Eva to catch him instead of just trying to get away with it. Kevin enjoys provocation for its own sake. He acts to get a reaction. Eva’s insight foreshadows Kevin’s later speech about the difference between the watchers and the watchees.

“In a country that doesn’t discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.”

Eva reflects on the copycat shootings and what she sees as the American lust for fame. She is also now more infamous than famous, given that many people blame her parenting for Kevin’s atrocities. She resents no longer being known for anything but the mother of a killer; Kevin chose to make her infamous knowing she would not be able to change the narrative.

“A successful lie cannot be brought into this world and capriciously abandoned; like any committed relationship, it must be maintained, and with far more devotion than the truth, which carries on being carelessly true without any help.”

Eva ponders her time on the witness stand during the trials. Her relationship with the truth evolves as she ponders Kevin’s sustained effort to maintain his lies for years. Indeed, his whole life is a lie, a string of calculations meant to deceive and provoke. Kevin’s campaign against Eva took diligence and planning.

“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.”

Eva writes to Franklin about the day she threw Kevin in the nursery and broke his arm. She has tried to be a good mother, with hugs, encouragements, and telling him that she loved him. She expected her efforts to prove she was a good mother because she expected her efforts would eventually change Kevin into a loving, normal child. She did many of the good things a good mother must do, but to no avail.

“Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience.”

The news provides such a relentless streak of grim events that Eva is no longer amazed by cruelties. Rapes and genocides scarcely get a reaction from her, but small kindnesses overwhelm her because they are so unexpected and alien to her.

“Celia made the most common mistake of the good-hearted: She assumed that everyone else was just like her. Evidence to the contrary found nowhere to lodge.”

Eva is confused by Celia’s refusal to hold a grudge against Kevin. Celia can’t understand that some people are cruel or that they might act out of motivations she does not have. She always believed her big brother must love her because that is what big brothers do for their little sisters. Her suggestibility and credulity allow Kevin to exploit her while also guaranteeing she will never tell on him.

“If there’s no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a successive life is simply to transfer the onus of purpose to the next generation; the displacement amounts to a cowardly and potentially infinite delay.”

Franklin often told Eva that a child is an answer to the big question of the point of life. Eva argues that having a child does not give life meaning. Life must have innate value to have purpose. Otherwise, people who could not have children would never have any reason to live.

“I glanced constantly at my watch. This is what it’s like to be Kevin, I thought. The leaden passage of minute by minute: This is what it’s like to be Kevin all the time.”

During their mother-son outing playing miniature golf, Eva is aware of how slowly time passes during a pointless activity. She realizes the game is a microcosm of the misery Kevin endures in every moment. Nothing can fulfill him for long or ease the passing of time. He is being too unpleasant for her to sympathize with, but it does help her understand him better. 

“One of the things I can’t stand about this country is lack of accountability. Everything Americans do that does work out too great has to be somebody else’s fault. Me, I stand by what I done. It wasn’t anybody’s idea but mine.”

During the Jack Marlin interview, Kevin insists that he feels no regret for his actions, and does not want anyone blaming Prozac, his parents, or the other school shooters who might have inspired him. He also interprets weak-willed abdications of responsibility as being a particularly American trait.

“Kevin has introduced me to a real foreign country. I can be sure of that, since the definition of the truly foreign locale is one that fosters a piercing and perpetual longing to go home.”

Eva reflects on the naiveté of her youth. She always thought her wanderlust was driven by a passion for the novel and exotic. Kevin has shown her that the last thing she wanted was a real adventure. She is nostalgic for her old life and can never have it back. Kevin has ushered her into a truly foreign part of her life.