I've never been a great believer in the "blood is thicker than water" theory. Just because you share 50 per cent, or 25 per cent, or even less, of a person's genes, there's no reason why you should have anything in common with them, or be able to get along with them.
Yet it is a persistent myth in our society, one that strikes particularly hard at mothers, who are supposed to instantly bond with their child, to feel an overwhelming surge of love and affection. This is the feeling of Eva, after giving birth to Kevin, who turns out to be a school shooting serial killer in We Need to Talk About Kevin:
"I was angry. I was frightened. I was ashamed of myself, but I also felt cheated. ... I thought, if a woman can't rise to an occasion like this, then she can't count on anything; from this point the word was on its ear."
When I learnt that the Orange Prize-winner was a novel on this subject, I'll admit I wasn't much impressed. This was the subject of the winner of the 2003 Booker, Vernon God Little and every review I'd read of that made me think: Definitely not for me.
But then I started reading rave review after rave review for Kevin and I thought I'd give it a go. It was a decision I didn't regret.
I don't read many "literary" novels - I find them often too slow and too laboured in their cleverness, but this is very definitely a literary novel: it has a complex epistolary structure, not a linear narrative; it is no mystery - you know from the start how it ends, or at least for most of the book you think you do; and you quickly come to realise that every word, every phrase, every little incident, is there for a reason.
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