We Need to Talk About Kevin

Ranked #14 in the New York Times Top 50 Thrillers of the 21st century

Sunday Times bestselling author Lionel Shriver's gripping, startling and urgent international bestseller about motherhood gone awry, winner of The Women's Prize for Fiction

‘Stunningly powerful’ DAILY MAIL

‘Startling’ GUARDIAN

‘Urgent’ SUNDAY TIMES

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER AND WOMEN'S PRIZE WINNER

‘Few novels are considered classics. This, though, is one of them’ Kate Mosse

Eva never really wanted to be a mother—certainly not the mother of the boy who murdered seven of his classmates, a cafeteria worker, and a much-adored teacher, two days before his sixteenth birthday.

Now, two years later, Eva must come to terms with the trauma of Kevin’s violent actions, in a series of painfully honest letters to her estranged husband, Franklin.

Above all, she must confront her fear that she raised a monster. And everything he has done is entirely her fault.

‘A powerful, gripping and original meditation on evil' NEW STATESMAN

'Taut, unnerving… standout' NEW YORK TIMES

Reviews

‘Few novels are considered classics. Fewer still attain that status within their lifetimes. This, though, is one of them. A novel so compelling, so original, as to warrant being read again and over agai.’ Kate Mosse

‘Desperate Housewives as written by Euripides…A powerful, gripping and original meditation on evil” New Statesman

‘Pitch-perfect, devastating and utterly convincing’ Geoff Dyer

‘Her [Eva’s] fierceness and honesty sustain the narrative; this is an impressive novel’ New York Times

‘A true literary achievement…Read it. Pass it on. We need to talk about this book’ Irish Sunday Independent

‘Rapier-sharp’ Washington Post

‘Explores but gives no simplistic solutions to the horrors of copycat killings, the choices before women combining careers with rearing children, or whether evil can be innate’ Times Literary Supplement

'An awesomely smart, stylish and pitiless achievement. Franz Kafka wrote that a book should be the ice-pick that breaks open the frozen seas inside us, because the books that make us happy we could write ourselves. Shriver has wielded Kafka’s axe with devastating force’ Boyd Tonkin, Independent

‘Impossible to put down…brutally honest…Who, in the end, needs to talk about Kevin? Perhaps we all do.’ Boston Globe

‘A fascinating, painful meditation on motherhood-as-regret.’Time Out

About the author

LIONEL SHRIVER’S novels include the National Book Award finalist So Much for That, the Sunday Times bestseller The Mandibles, and the international bestseller We Need to Talk About Kevin, winner of the Orange Prize. A regular on multiple podcasts, she’s written fortnightly columns for the Spectator since 2017. Her journalism has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Harper’s, The Times, UnHerd, the FT, The Free Press, Spiked Online and many other media outlets.

She lives in Portugal and Brooklyn, New York.