Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005
Lionel Shriver tells a compelling, absorbing, and resonant story while framing these horrifying tableaux of teenage carnage as metaphors for the larger tragedy - the tragedy of a country where everything works, nobody starves, and anything can be bought but a sense of purpose. This title is also available as an Audiobook, in either CD or cassette format.

Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault?

'...taps into unspoken fears of maternal ambivalence that are not easily acknowledged and do not fit neatly into glossy magazine notions of female empowerment' Guardian Unlimited

'Harrowing, tense and thought-provoking, this is a vocal challenge to every accepted parenting manual you've ever read' Andrew Morrod, Daily Mail

'A chilling, yet compulsive book that'll keep you hooked until the very end' Irish News

'Truly engrossing... a shocking, sometimes funny and unputdownable novel' Sunday Business Post

'A deeply shocking but mesmerising novel' Herald

Lionel Shriver is the author of seven novels, and has written extensively for the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Economist. She lives in London. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation