The making of a mass murderer: Notes on the novel We need to talk about Kevin

Abstract

The fictional protagonist of the Lionel Shriver novel, We need to talk about Kevin, massacred nine classmates, his father and his sister with a bow and arrow. He murdered them just before he turned 16, to avoid being prosecuted as an adult. He spared the life of his mother, a kindred spirit, cold, arrogant, who would recognize the depth of his hatred and nihilism. Kevin's maternal grandfather was born in a concentration camp during the Armenian genocide. His mother, Eva, a tough, independent woman, loathed being pregnant and the process of giving birth. Kevin was a demanding baby and then a cruel child. Eva kept telling her husband that she found Kevin's malignity troubling, but he only wanted to see the charming, vulnerable side of the boy. Was Kevin born a sociopath or did he become one due to his experiences in utero and beyond? In this paper, I elucidate how temperamental features, inadequate parenting, transgenerational trauma, and oppressive gender relations created the perfect storm from which Kevin's personality developed. Finally, I will discuss how Eva and Kevin struggled to repair their relationship after the murders, and consider whether forgiveness and reconciliation are even possible after such a heinous act.

Key words:

• temperament
• environmental failure
• transgenerational transmission
• forgiveness and reconciliation
• malignity

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Veronica Csillag

Author

Veronica Csillag, LCSW, is co-director, faculty, training and supervising analyst of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis, former faculty and supervisor of the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services, and former faculty of the NYU School of Social Work. She is co-author, coproducer and actor in The blue crystal teardrop (1990), a 35-minute narrative film, and author of the following: “The child patient of this particular therapist” (Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, 2015); “Ordinary sadism in the consulting room” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2014); “After the Trumpede” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2017); and “Emmy Grant: Immigration as repetition of trauma and as potential space” (Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 2017). She is in private practice in New York City.