We Need To Talk About Kevin

Eva writes about a mother-son activity with Kevin: miniature golf and dinner. Kevin didn’t bring a coat and shivered through the game, which he was actually good at. After, he asked why Eva celebrates Christmas without being Christian. They went shopping, but Kevin was so critical of every idea for gifts that she bought nothing. She saw an obese woman eating ice cream and said it was her fault for being fat. Rather that participating in the mockery and judgment, Kevin says she is harsh, and they go home to dress for dinner.

At the restaurant, Kevin made dinner impossible. He asked what her problem with America was. Eva said America was ugly and she hated the accent, people who power walk, and other petty inconveniences.

Kevin took notes with a crayon on the tablecloth while she talked. He wrote a list of unflattering adjectives that describe Eva and said the only difference between her and the Americans she condemns is that she is not fat. 

At a pet store, Eva bought a small shrew for Celia that she will name Snuffles. In February of 1998 Snuffles went missing. Eva told Celia Snuffles probably went outside and found new friends. She does not tell her she suspects the clog in the sink was Snuffles and that she dissolved the clog with Liquid-Plumr, which she then put away, out of reach.

Eva and Franklin hired a seismology student named Robert to pick up Celia from school and then to watch her until they were home. However, Franklin then told Robert that Kevin could watch Celia once he got home. One evening Franklin called to tell Eva that Celia was in the hospital. She was already in surgery when Eva arrived. A doctor said he would not be able to save Celia’s eye. 

At home, Franklin blamed Eva for leaving the Liquid-Plumr out. She insisted she put it away after dealing with the clog and wanted him to ask Kevin about it. She asked why Celia would pour the chemicals in her eye. Franklin was ashamed of her and said he was proud that Kevin stayed level-headed during the trauma and helped find a way to get Celia to the hospital.

Eva agreed to call it an accident if Franklin never left Celia with Kevin again. Then Eva started to wonder if she really put the bottle away. When they talked to Kevin, he said he never blamed himself. They asked him to stick up for Celia, and he says it was cool that she’ll have to wear an eye-patch. He eats lychees in front of them as they talked, which looked and felt like eyeballs. 

Kevin began the habit of masturbating frequently with the bathroom door open. Franklin denied he was doing it to bother Eva, but she knows better. Franklin talked to him and said that there would be no more of it. The next day Kevin loudly masturbated in the bathroom, going on for so long that Eva thought the wanted her to come and stop him. Eva found him with his eyes open, staring at her, and using butter for lubrication. He stared at her stoically as she slammed the door. 

Eva writes that it never occurred to her to leave. Mary Woolford visited her shortly after and told her that her daughter Laura has an eating disorder. Kevin had been telling her she was still overweight. Mary caught her purging even though she barely weighed 100 pounds. Eva said Laura should suck it up and then grew unhinged and yelled at Mary, asking if she thought she should go talk to Kevin. 

Celia came home in March, badly scarred. She now wore a flesh-colored eye patch, and Kevin treated her as poorly as ever. Eva forbade Celia from helping Kevin practice archery. Her eye socket had to be swabbed frequently, and Eva got used to helping her. Celia only ever said about the incident that she got something in her eye and Kevin helped her get it out.

The school shooter Andy Williams inspires a series of copycats. There are four school shootings in the spring of 1998. That spring, Celia was fitted for a prosthetic eye by Dr. Sahatjian, who lost an eye in an accident when he was 12. This encouraged Eva because she never would have known he had a glass eye. 

While watching news coverage of a shooting, Franklin asked Kevin if there were any kids with mental health conditions at school and if there could ever be a shooting. Kevin says that it could easily happen anywhere. 

As more school shootings occur, the leadership at Kevin’s school grew increasingly paranoid and teachers began watching students for signs of deviant precursors. Kevin said that the adults were going to give kids ideas if they didn’t relax. 

He says leaders found a kill list in the locker of a boy named Miguel Espinoza due to an anonymous tip. At the end of Kevin’s 9th grade, AWAP’s computers receive a catastrophic virus. Eva sneaked into Kevin’s room and looked at his computer. She found a disc and loaded it into a computer to see what was on it. This unwittingly led her to spread the virus into her own company’s system. While confronting Kevin, he told her he collected computer viruses but had never used one, unlike her. He said the point of the viruses was that no one benefited from them. He also said that if she disliked anyone, she should give him their email addresses.

Eva writes the night before a Chatham visit. She wants Franklin back and wonders if she wants his forgiveness. She and Kevin both received many letters of forgiveness in the aftermath of Thursday. She is annoyed that the same type of hypocritical forgiveness is not extended to bigots or sexists. Why can’t they understand someone like Vicki Pagorski and forgive her? Pagorski was Kevin’s drama teacher.

Kevin said she dressed immodestly and didn’t always wear a bra. He tells them she always wanted kids to stay after class and asked if he could speak privately to Franklin. Franklin’s behavior after they spoke suggested Pagorski may have been inappropriate with Kevin.

Dana Rocco was Kevin’s English teacher. She requested a conference, during which she asked Eva why Kevin was so angry and what game he is playing. Rocco thought Kevin’s serenity was a facade. She felt his interest in learning was primarily so no one could get an advantage on him. She said to tell Kevin she’s on to him. 

Eva attended a hearing about the behavior of Vicki Pagorski. Kevin testified that she kept him after school and wore a revealing outfit. He alleged she asked him if he’d ever seen the penis of a horse and then rubbed his crotch. Kevin said her advances was unwanted because she was an ugly woman. He then claimed he ejaculated while she talked about wanting to fellate a horse. Pagorski denied this but admits they talked about eroticism and horses in the play Equus. She asked Kevin what she has ever done to him. 

Leonard testifies that he had sex with Pagorski on her desk, but he is obviously lying and overplaying his hand. Afterward, Franklin said Lenny made Kevin look like a liar. At home, he scolded Eva for apologizing to Pagorski after the hearing. 

Eva wanted to send Kevin to boarding school at that point because things were escalating. She said Kevin coached the other boys who testified. She thought Kevin was a genius, and she didn’t know what he might do next. Franklin told her he wanted to separate.

Later, Kevin walked into a room naked and looked at Eva in the dark. She thought he overheard their conversation and that was when he made his decision about Thursday. 

Pagorski was no longer allowed to supervise students but was not fired. Kevin told Franklin the verdict depressed him, and he wanted to try Prozac. She realizes now that Kevin thought that if they separated living alone with Franklin—who was so easy to fool—would be worse than living with both of them.

Eva writes to Franklin that she is watching too much TV. When the TV dies during a sitcom she panics and cries. Tonight, she sees Kevin’s face on TV. It is Jack Marlin’s documentary, called “Bad Boy.” In Kevin’s interview, he says the Prozac caused a strange reaction. It’s not an excuse, he says, and clarifies that he made his choices. He tells Marlin that they need to lay off Eva. Kevin claims they were both creeps sometimes, and the rest is private. 

Marlin asks why Kevin did it. Kevin says that on TV most of the characters are watching TV, and they’re usually watching people like him. He divides the world into those who watch and those who are watched. The audience has gotten too big, in his opinion. He asks what they would do without people like him. He mocks the Columbine shooters as amateurs. He says he picked his victims because they got on his nerves. When asked if he has any remorse, he says the only thing he would change is killing the kid who he only maimed. 

On April 8, he switched to “watchee” (369). She turns the TV off and thinks about how much entertainment depravity provides. She thinks Jack Marlin talks to Kevin as if he’s grateful for him. 

During the civil trial, Mary Woolford’s lawyers asked Eva if there had been any warning signs. She admitted to being confused when FedEx brought five bike locks to their house. Kevin was careful to order arrows in small batches, never arousing suspicion. It surprised Eva that, rather than separating, she and Franklin experienced a second honeymoon, as if they knew they were about to lose each other. She had thought nothing worse than divorce could happen.

She tells Franklin if he hadn’t given Kevin the crossbow for Christmas, he would have found another way. She does not blame him. She thinks using a crossbow was a way for Kevin to stand out among the other shooters. He also can’t be used as a poster boy for gun control. He guaranteed that Thursday would remain meaningless. 

On the morning of Thursday, Kevin wore a white fencing shirt and packed the bike locks into a backpack in front of his parents. Franklin tried to show him a camera and explain that he’d like to photograph Kevin at the archery range. Kevin screamed at him to shut up and said he doesn’t care about photography. He viciously attacked everything Franklin has ever tried to do with him to bond. 

Eva reminded Kevin that he had independent study in archery that day. Before he left Kevin asked if she wanted to say good-bye to Celia one more time. Eva was busy that day but reflected on Kevin’s outburst. It was more direct and decisive than most of his cruelties. 

At 6:15pm, coworkers told her that something was happening at Gladstone high. It was already on the Internet, but there were no identities of shooters or victims yet. Despite everything, she was worried about Kevin’s safety.

She writes that Kevin sent each of the victims a letter, on official school letterhead, singling them out for a distinguished achievement. That got them to the gym. Everyone knew about his archery class, so no one blinked on the bus when he was carrying arrows and his crossbow. He locked the bleachers so they stayed up and arranged six blue wrestling mats in a circle.

He hid in an alcove above the gymnasium as they entered the gym. Dana Rocco and a cafeteria worker arrived with sandwiches. Only nine of his 10 guests came at first, but then Joshua Lukronsky arrived. Kevin sneaked down and bolted the gym’s doubles doors without being seen. He returned to the alcove and started shooting.

A survivor reports that he heard Kevin say the word “maleficence” as he shot. He had asked Rocco what the word meant earlier in English class. He pinned Greer’s feet to the floor with arrows before killing him. Ziggy Randolph tried to calm Kevin down as Kevin shot and killed him.

A boy named Soweto passed out after Kevin shot his legs. He would survive. Kevin took his time, emptying both buckets of arrows over the next couple of hours until police arrived as he waited calmly. When Eva arrived, police were taking Kevin out. Kevin stared at her from a police car, looking satisfied.  

Police took her statement at the station. When they asked if she wanted to talk with Kevin, she said no. She was surprised they told her to go home, and she wanted to be punished. At home, the house was empty. Celia was pinned to an archery target in the backyard, shot by five arrows. Her glass eye was missing. Eva then found Franklin’s body with an arrow through his throat. She tells Franklin how she imagined their last moments as Kevin fired at them.

Kevin committed the murders three days before his 16th birthday. His lawyer emphasized the possibility of him having a psychotic condition from a reaction to Prozac. Kevin’s lawyer said he’d never heard of possible psychosis from Prozac: that had been Kevin’s idea.

Three months after Thursday Eva tells Kevin that Mary Woolford is suing. He tells her not to feel sorry for herself. He says that he didn’t shoot Eva because she is part of the audience. Leaving her alive might have been the ultimate act of vengeance. Kevin is passing an object from palm to palm as they talk. It is Celia’s glass eye. She says if he ever shows it to her again, she will never return.

Eva is writing on the two-year anniversary of Thursday. Kevin will turn 18 in three days. He is agitated when she visits him because he is about to move to a real prison: Sing Sing Penitentiary. They talk about the most recent two shootings and she tells him she still writes to Franklin.

She asks Kevin why he did it. He says he is no longer sure, but at one point he thought he knew. She takes his hand and thanks him for his honesty. He says he made her a present and gives her a small wooden box, shaped like a coffin. He asks her not to open it. She opens it anyway and sees Celia’s eye in the box. Kevin feels like the eye is watching him and no longer wants it. Eva says Celia and Franklin watch Kevin every day. He wants her to bury the eye. He clings to her when they say good-bye, and she thinks she hears him say, “I’m sorry.” She says it too.

The civil case goes against Mary Woolford, but Eva has to pay her own court costs, which she appreciates. In court, she never hides her feelings about Kevin, which leads the papers to describe her as icy; of course she produced such a monster.

Eva sells AWAP and the house. She writes that Kevin will get out of prison in three years if he survives. She is too exhausted to fight and too exhausted not to love him. When and if Kevin gets out of prison, she writes that there is a second room in her apartment, with a copy of Robin Hood on the shelf.