Review of "A Spool of Blue Thread" by Anne Tyler

Even the very title of this novel screams that it is quintessentially American. Set deep in the heart of the country, the key protagonist Abby is a mother first, a wife second, and a money maker last. This book is almost what I would call a reverse bildungsroman (if such a thing exists): we start off with a retired Abby who still struggles to understand her problem child Denny, and then we move back to how she met her husband Red, and even further back in time to how his parents met. Eventually the reader learns that out of happiness, happiness does not always emerge, and out of unhappiness it is possible to find joy. 

Denny has always been a problem child, yet in spite of that. or perhaps because of it, he's always been Abby's favourite. But what happens when a problem child grows up and becomes a problem adult? Does it get any easier for a mother? And what about the rest of her children? Abby is mother to Jeannie, Amanda, Denny and Stem, as well as grandmother to numerous children, and loves being the centre of their little community, as well as the fact that they all live nearby. 

Unfortunately, Abby is starting to age, and as the family gather closer together, we find otu everyone's real intentions with being part of the family, and their true colours are displayed. But when we delve deeper into Abby's memory we learn that perhaps even seemingly the closest of families can be worlds apart.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x

Review of "The Wedding Cake Tree"*

(image taken from Goodreads)

A couple of days ago I came across the phrase "book hangover" on Instagram and that is the best way I've ever heard the idea being described. You know when you finish a book and can't pick up a new one for a day or two because you're still contemplating the world of the old one? Well that's what I had with this. There were so many important messages in it about love and identity, but I think the most important one was that expressed in the quotation I picked out above.

Grace Buchanan is hit hard by her mother's seemingly sudden death, but she isn't exactly prepared for the conditions of her will either. Rosamund, Grace's late mother, has insisted she take ten days off of work to go on a mysterious trip with hunky military man Alasdair. Despite Grace's extreme reluctance to go, her mother's desire to have her ashes spread in the places she will travel to means that she can't exactly say no. However, was this Rosamund's only intention for the journey? And how will Grace deal with having to put her life in the hands of a man she's never met before?

I pretty much figured nothing could ever make me want to travel to Scotland as much as this did. As someone who lives in the south of England, concepts about the environment of Scotland are usually filled with "HOW much snow?!", so it's never seemed too appealing. However, the descriptions of the beautiful landscape here make me want to pick up a camera and go travelling up there myself. There was so much chemistry between Alasdair and Grace that I was practically begging for them to get together the entire time. I don't think I've ever rooted for a couple as much as this since Dexter and Lumen!

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x

Review of 'Exmikan': Part 1 of the 'Mexican Eskimo' Trilogy* | Q & A with the author | Offer

(image taken from www.mexicaneskimo.com)

This review has been a long time in the making, but I'm really excited to share it with you guys. I've finally finished my final set of university seminars ever, which is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. Hopefully however, it means my reviews will be posted a bit more frequently (I've realised I've got seven saved up that I need to write down properly!). 

A couple of months ago, the author of Exmikan, Anker Frankoni, emailed me about doing a review of the book. Now I can say that I'm very glad this happened. Exmikan to me was an eclectic mix of styles, moving between a stereotypical modern American style of writing, to one that almost resembled an ancient oral style, or the overlaying narrative of a film. The first section of the book was my least favourite, but once I got past that I couldn't put it down! 

 The book follows a number of characters' lives, and reminded me of an almost postmodern style. My favourite parts were the ones which contained fantastical elements. Stories from eons ago about the relationships between humans and animals in Alaska were incredibly thought-provoking in terms of the effects we have on our world. This was only one of the aspects that really made me think about my actions. Human relationships were ever at the centre of it - mothers, fathers, lovers, children, etc.

If you're someone who prefers books to shy away from the ugly reality of modern life, this probably isn't for you. However, with my favourite book being We Need to Talk About Kevin, you can probably guess that I don't fall into that category. Subjects including child sexual abuse and suicide are covered in this book, and they help to create a realistic snapshot of many lives over a number of generations. This really helps the book to seamlessly blend the realistic with the fantastical in a way in which I haven't seen in a while.

Interview with Anker Frankoni

- To what extent is the first book in the Mexican Eskimo trilogy semi-autobiographical?

Like life—and the beliefs we all hold about ourselves—the answer to this could be very different depending on what plane of consciousness I pull it from. A direct pragmatic response might read like this: The first book in my "Mexican Eskimo" trilogy weaves together layers of storytelling that are alternately composed of 90% fantasy peppered with 10% fact, spliced with intersecting passages where the ratio is reversed, and I've added ten layers of obscuring varnish to a ninety-gauge thickness of events that I describe exactly from memory.

Ahh, but that's where the trouble lies doesn't it? Because memory, and the impression of what is "fact" comes in as many different varieties as the seven-billion+ people on the earth that have heads to hold them in. As an experiment to demonstrate this, have a 5 minute conversation with anyone you are close to (especially an emotionally charged conversation about things that deeply affect your shared lives) and then attempt to repeat to each other exactly what the conversation entailed, and end up with both of you agreeing that the other got it right. Impossible, right? So our present becomes our past every second of every day, and the moment it does so it is no longer defined by reality, but by our memories of it.

So to answer your question from my memory of what I was thinking, feeling, and experiencing while living the parts of my life which I shared in this book, and researching the lives of my blood (and spirit) family members which I decided to drag in there with me, the only true answer to your question is this Stephanie: "Mexican Eskimo" is a tale of two lives, separated by the one I'm currently occupying. This book is the "realest" account I've been able to commit in words to explain my take on the experience of this existence, and it was delicately fashioned from the only 100% real things that exist inside my head: equal layers of piled up pieces of falsely remembered facts, and gospel-truth fantasies.

- From where did you draw the inspiration for the fantastical aspect to the novel, e.g. the story of the birth of dog?

Beneath its wolf-skin facade of genre-bending magical realism, theoretical constructs of dream-travel and reincarnation, and a strong overlayer of liberal humanitarian politics, ultimately, "Mexican Eskimo" is a story about women, told by a man raised by one that should have been treated much better than she was. My personal belief is that most of the hate, murder, addictions, lies, rape, suicide—lump every other thing that logically goes into this list and throw them in a burlap sack—stems from the mistreatment of children. We've had thousands of years to learn how to properly love and respect one another during the evolutionary course of human society, but sadly the problem is as much an issue today as it was ten, one hundred, or one thousand years ago.

During my extensive research into the culture and myths of the indigenous people of Canada and Alaska that went into creating the time-travel and rebirth elements of "Mexican Eskimo," one primary story spoke to my spirit in particular. Throughout the Arctic region, the myth of a creator goddess known as Sedna is shared almost universally throughout the various tribes of people commonly labeled "Native Americans." Inuit, Yup'ik, Aleut (Unangan) and others tell variations of the birth of Sedna, Queen of the Sea, whose spirit must be appeased to ensure the successful hunts of the seal and whale upon which their peoples' survival depends. In all the various iterations of the Sedna myth, she is invariably created from the form of a young human girl who angers her father by attempting to marry someone she selects for herself, or rejecting marriage to a man or spirit-creature her father arranges for her (either scenario symbolic of sexual control by the father figure.) Angered by her refusal to bow to his will in one way or another, Sedna's father casts her into the sea, and when she tries to save herself from drowning by attempting to climb back aboard his boat, he chops off her fingers with a knife and sends her to her death (violent mutilation of the female offspring by the dominant father figure.) My reinterpretation of this part of the legend of Sedna alone would have been a very powerful addition to the harsh reality of one of the darkest patches of our society's underbelly that I wanted to address in the fictionalized storytelling of this work.

I wrote "Mexican Eskimo" for a lot of reasons however, and not just to point fingers at something tragic or despicable! I also published this book in hopes that some of the adult female survivors of childhood sexual abuse who read it might become more aware of the healing power of trust, honesty, and the deepest forms of self-examination, and find the strength and inspiration to restore love and faith within themselves. In this regard Sedna is a fantastic role-model: despite the physical brutality hatefully inflicted on her by one of the very people who should have loved her more than anyone in the world, through the strength of her own self-love she refuses to accept not just death, but even allows herself to forgive all of humankind and continue blessing those who sought to destroy her: this I believe is the essence of spiritual love and growth.

- How important do you think storytelling is culturally, as I noticed that this was emphasized particularly when it came to Sedna?

We are nothing as individuals outside of our relationships. Without our connections to the other human beings with whom we live and communicate, we could literally not exist. The next stage of existence after the individual is family, followed by friends, then the greater social circles comprised of the people with whom we interact in our actual lives, followed finally by culture — those elements of the human experience we are exposed to on a completely non-personal level, that we absorb only through art, literature, media, and information technologies. Storytelling is the essential root of every level of our connection with human existence: Family; Friends; Workplace; Cultural Identity — everything we think we know about ourselves and others all boils down to a story we've been told. Whether it's the story of how your great-grandparents met, or the globally accepted "story" we've all decided to agree on that gold has fundamental value (only so far as we agree that it is) that our system of international currency exchange is somehow tied to the value of gold (it's not) and that your neighbor who is in possession of more of these credits is somehow "worth" more than those who have less (they aren't) — it's all just based on the stories we've repeated enough times to believe... and they are ALL composed of some ratio or another of both fact, and fiction.

With that in mind, along with a reiteration of the point I made above—that the only 100% real things about my life is that which exists inside my head—I'll answer your question about storytelling by robbing the first part of the forward from my own book, which begins: "When writers say that names and places have been changed to protect the innocent, what they are really saying is that they are protecting themselves. In this book, which begins the story of my unlikely existence as a Mexican Eskimo, I have changed nothing, for even if I counted myself amongst the innocent, no one can harm me more than I have already harmed myself. If this seems a rash jab at my duty to behave responsibly, and uphold my obligations to the rules of the society in which we live, I confess it’s nothing new. Time and again, year after year, those with whom I was closest urged me to face reality. Instead, I ultimately chose to face that infinitely more beguiling and enduring realm which I believe is the real crux of our shared human experience: Fiction."

- Various scenes in the book could be described as quite graphic. Why do you choose not to skirt around difficult topics, instead highlighting their reality to the reader?

My purpose behind the "Mexican Eskimo" series (of which this first book is only the beginning) is to reproduce a trip through the dark parts of the human soul in order to end up in the light. To truly take that trip, I ask my readers to forgo a great many of the niceties of polite society, and take a journey through time and the human condition, tied together with a complex back-story featuring generations of both likable and despicable characters thrust together by fate and circumstance. Few creatures on this planet are capable of inflicting the kind of abuse on their fellow creatures as human beings do every day, and in keeping with my intention to examine the many different levels of the human spirit that I explore in this work, I forced myself to address the difficult parts of my family history right along with the positive elements.

I should thank you though Stephanie for putting it so nicely! Saying simply that I "chose not to skirt around difficult topics" is indeed putting it mildly, as my material is admittedly much more than a bit controversial (and on that note this seems like the perfect time to remind your blog readers that this book is intended only for mature adult audiences 18 years and older.)

Ultimately, I'm glad of my decision to stay as true and candid about the negative elements of human conduct as I am to the positive bits of this story, and I'm proud to be able to say that many readers have written not only reviews, but personal letters to me, giving thanks for the clarity and healing that my work has lent to their analysis of some of their own life experiences. It would be unfair of me to be less than honest though, and I must admit too that other readers and reviewers have offered scathing criticisms, expressing strong feelings of disgust and disdain... there have been very few lukewarm reactions; "Mexican Eskimo" is without a doubt a love-it-or-hate-it piece of work. It seems that many folks believe that graphic depictions of sex, child-abuse, bestiality, self-mutilation, and suicide don't have a place in stories about love and redemption.

One of the most interesting things though (and that I frankly would never have anticipated) is that the most positive, heartfelt, and soul-baring letters I've received have invariably come from women who suffered sexual abuse in childhood. As for the detractors, I don't have any way to guess at what might be the common denominator that creates such strong aversion to my writing — all I can do is thank anyone (silently in my head!) who puts out a negative statement about "Mexican Eskimo," as for me it's just more evidence that I have succeeded in one of my goals with this work: I never set out to write something that people wouldn't react strongly to.

I appreciate these great prompts Stephanie, and your willingness to let me share this Q&A-style soliloquy here on All of Literature's A Stage. If any of your readers would like to purchase a paper copy of "Mexican Eskimo Book 1: Exmikan" they can use coupon-code ALSFREESHIP at my Etsy bookshop at: https://www.etsy.com/shop/MexicanEskimo and I'll waive the delivery charge on a signed copy of my book sent anywhere in the USA or UK through the end of March, 2015. To read a sample of "Mexican Eskimo," and sign up for newsletter updates and other discounts and giveaways, visit www.MexicanEskimo.com or just email me at Anker@MexicanEskimo.com

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x

50th Post | Review of Frankenstein

I really want to say thanks for reading my blog - it wouldn't have ever gotten this far without people's support! It's pretty apt that Frankenstein has come up as my 50th post as, having just completed it for the fourth (maybe fifth?!) time, I've realised that it is definitely one of my firm favourites. Having said that, I probably won't be reading it again any time soon - I feel as though I could practically narrate it word for word right now!

So, I've studied Frankenstein numerous times in my career as a lit student. The first was in the context of the gothical canon at a-level. Since then I've looked at it through the lens of its place in modern literature, and feminist writing. It's pretty much just a gift that keeps on giving, and every time I come to read it, I'm just amazed by how radical and potent it is. There are actually two different versions of Frankenstein - the 1818 edition and the 1831 one. I would advise anyone to read the 1818 version - it differs slightly in content and has fewer of Percy Shelley's amendments. 

Victor Frankenstein is an intellectual who seeks to discover more about natural philosophy. Having acquired an in-depth knowledge about this science, he turns his attentions towards an experiment which he hopes will make his name go down in history forever. Sadly it does, but for the wrong reasons .... Birthing a hideous creation, Frankenstein abandons his helpless 8ft monster to a life of loneliness and deprivation. However, as the above quotation indicates, a life devoid of any sympathy may turn the sweetest heart to stone.

The creature is a product of the labourer, Frankenstein. Unlike the majority of scientific research, Frankenstein does not create a theoretical piece of work, but a material one. This allows for a Marxist reading of the play. It is interesting that Frankenstein and his monster have both a master-slave and a producer-product relationship; these are not the same thing. The master slave relationship present in the book is a truly Hegelian one: the master's existence is dependent on the slave even more than the slave's existence is dependent on the master. The master's very identity is predicated on the existence of the slave. The master's and the slave's identities can shift: this is what happens with Frankenstein and his monster. Frankenstein moves from being the master, to slave, to master again as the creature *spoiler alert* stands over his dead body.

Although the entire book is narrated from a male perspective, there is a lot of room to examine the importance of women in the text. For starters, the entire novel is written specifically for a woman: Margaret Saville. Her presence ensconces the novel and adds another layer of perception to the book. Moreover, the central figure in all of the layers of narration is Safie, an arab woman. The  presence and non-presence of women and especially mothers throughout the text is probably something people find most concerning and noticeable. Frankenstein gives birth with no female input, and therefore, removes the woman from the domestic sphere. The question really is, after this can he ever become married and life a life of domestic harmony? Is it necessary that Elizabeth dies?

What do you think of it?

Steph 

Review of "Follow Me Follow You"*

This was my favourite line from the whole book. Although this doesn't directly give details of the plot of the book, it does actually speak true to what the characters are dealing with: the past. Now, although everyone says "never judge a book by it's cover", I'm a sucker for a book with intriguing cover art. So, when I first received this from Choc Lit I was quite put off. However, once I started reading I realised that (thankfully) the cover did not do justice to the contents of the novel.

Without giving too many spoilers, and going too deep into the plot, I'm going to give a quick summary of the book. The key protagonist is Victoria Noble, a recent divorcee with a four year old son (Seth) who hates her. She is co-owner of a social media firm called EweSpeak, and is slightly hung up over her past with actor Chris Frampton. In an effort to go "back to basics" to repair her relationship with her son, Victoria moves back to the town in which she grew up. Once there, she discovers that her past could just be the key to creating her and Seth's future ...

When I first started reading I got really worried. We Need To Talk About Kevin is my all-time favourite  book and it looked like Follow Me Follow You was going to go down the same plot route. However, the tension between Victoria and Seth was not the only plot strand of the novel. Chris and his son Ricky made a touching pair in the face of their tragedy. Plus, not only was it well written, but contained many narrative ideas and styles which I hadn't really come across. I personally loved the whole idea of EweSpeak, which is effectively twitter. The "bleats" (aka tweets) at the start of each chapter were such a unique and funny addition to the book. Also, the way in which certain key issues were handled (*ahem* I did warn no spoilers) was realistic and touching.

All in all, I loved this book, and after the first couple of chapters I couldn't put it down!

Have you read it? What did you think?

Get it here!

Steph x

Review of The Atlas of Us

Sometimes when I'm picking a quote to put with my review I pick one which I think sums up a key component of the book well, but this time I've picked the quote which I think most spoke out to me from the book. This actually happens at a fairly inconsequential part of the novel, and is a fairly unimportant conversation. However, it does speak volumes about a very important message behind the plot of the text.

I actually won this book in a twitter competition with Avon Books. This was the first book I've ever won, so I've been pretty excited to read it. Initially I thought this book was going to be largely about the 2004 tsunami (I read the prologue and had to put it down for a number of weeks, ugh). This particularly intrigued me as I haven't really found any literature about this before, so at first I was rather disappointed that it didn't continue in the same strain.

So now for what it's all about. The book travels along two stories. One follows the adventures of Claire Shreve, a barren journalist who is seeking to discover how to define herself as an adult woman who cannot become a mother. The other is all about a woman named Louise, who can only define herself through her loving relationship with her children and stale one with her mother. Louise's content marital life at home in the UK is suddenly put under the weight of the news that her mother was in the area in which the 2004 tsunami hit. She must fly out in an attempt to discover whether her enstranged mother is alive or has been lost to the sea. Once she gets there, she realises that her mother knew Claire Shreve, but how? Claire is trapped in a life determined by the fact that she cannot have children, and her husband is upsettingly optimistic about yet another round of IVF. She needs to learn how to be happy with her life as it is, and the best way to do this seems to be "stepping off the map" and travelling the world. The book follows the attempts these women make to discover their own path to happiness, and mothers and those without children alike may benefit from taking some lessons from this book.

I have to say, although I enjoyed the book in the end, at first I didn't like it a great deal. I felt that the plot was too simplistic and obvious. It was incredibly clear that the subject was personal to the author, and whilst that allowed for an authoritative take on some of the issues in the book I felt that certain ones in particular were stressed too much. The reader was aware that Claire was barren, they didn't need to be reminded every chapter. Saying that, perhaps that was the point - infertility is a problem that doesn't just go away, so why should the reader be allowed to forget about it if Claire couldn't? As I said before, the book grew on me. I thought that the ending was one of the most realistic I've read in a while. The realism of this novel was perhaps its strongest point. At the heart of the novel is a complex issue (trying not to give any spoilers), which could have simply seemed unbelievable if the novel were written badly, but the fact that Buchanan allowed the other components of the plot to be realistic made it work.

Have any of you read it? What did you think?

Steph

Review of Twelve Years A Slave

"They are deceived who flatter themselves that the ignorant and debased slave has no conception of the magnitude of his wrongs"

Prewarn: i'm not talking about the film (and yes, the film was made from a book). Twelve Years A Slave is the true story of Solomon Northup's descent and recovery from slavery which he narrates himself. This is the most powerful piece of writing, literature or not, that I have ever come across concerning the issue of slavery. As I was reading the text, I began to wonder why we don't read literature as part of history courses which teach students about horrendous periods of history like this one. The emotion contained in this text taught me about the mental and physical trauma which slavery inflicted upon real people, which i had never really come across despite studying it at school.

So, back to the review (SPOILER ALERT). Twelve Years A Slave begins with a contented Solomon Northup living in an American state in which it was permissible to be a free black man. He knew very little about the practicalities of slavery, viewing it as something different to him. Unfortunately for him there are some truly evil people out there. Two such men trick Solomon into travelling with them. After a couple of days they drug him, chain him and proceed to force him to accept that he is a slave. From there Northup recounts his experiences as a slave, being sold like a piece of unworthy chattel, or an animal.

This text was incredibly well written, and as such is a testament to the bravery and intellect of this man. For me, the text reached a state of emotional poignancy when a slave that Northup was kept with was torn from her children. The master had no reason to tear this mother from her little girl, bar his own cruelty. So he sold the girl and kept the mother who weakened more and more out of grief, and because of this suffered more and more from the weight of his lash. This unprovoked spite was, according to Northup, the worst sight he witnessed during the entirety of his confinement. I believe that his incredible writing skill allowed him to express this, ensuring that readers too felt this was the most horrific scene of the book. However, this does not go to say that the other acts of cruelty Northup witnesses were any less inhumane. Northup was stripped of his name, clothes and right to life. He often survived being killed because of his monetary value. When capitalism reaches a crisis like this can we really see it in a positive light?

This text not only raises issues about the idea of race, but also gender. Women were expected to keep up with men, but sadly often mistreated by their mistresses and masters. the latter would frequently seduce them (they could hardly say no to him) and the mistress would punish the woman effectively for being raped or sexually assaulted. This appears to lead to depression in female slaves in the text.

In my opinion, everyone should read this in order to go some way into understand the emotional impact of slavery from someone who experienced themselves. What are your opinions on including literature like this when teaching young adults about the historical impact and implications of slavery?

A Historical Reading of White Oleander

Janet Fitch was born in 1955 in Los Angeles. Not only had she lived there for the entirety of her life when she wrote White Oleander, but as two previous generations of her family lived in the city she clearly has an expansive and personal knowledge of it which allows her to inject a level of geographical accuracy into the novel which not only heightens its interest for local readers, but also for those worldwide for whom the accuracy gives the text a level of authenticity. As a child she had a difficult relationship with her mother, whom she believes lacked the necessary skills for motherhood  (there appears to be a slight insertion of her own history into the text on this theme). She studied history for a period in Keele University in England, having been inspired by the concept of stories within history. However, she eventually realised at the age of 21 that she did not want to merely read stories; she wanted to write them, and thus began her journey as a writer.

Fitch finally finished writing White Oleander in 1999. This was a turbulent time in Los Angeles as certain parts of America, including here, had undergone a rapid economic decline and resurgence within just over a decade. The tension at this time was further heightened by the fact that the Cold War finished only 8 years earlier, whilst Fitch was in the process of creating a text; the uneasiness of American citizens was not immediately extinguished by this time, as they had suffered over thirty years of fear and anxiety. Moreover, perhaps the most significant cause for anxiety for the citizens of Los Angeles during this time however was the 1992 riots and their aftermath. They commenced after a video of a black man being beaten by a group of white policemen was filmed and realised to the public and the trial saw the all-white jury acquit the men of this crime; the riots broke out within hours. People lived in fear for their lives, and some did not make it. Not only were there violent, sporadic killings, but over $1 Billion worth of damage was caused, largely through arson. This rupture in the quotidian social climate meant that life has not been the same in Los Angeles since. These factors which induced high levels of anxiety in citizens are reflected in the book: Astrid constantly fears for something; Ingrid is unsettled and eventually finds happiness in the structure of prison; the instability of the various domestic lives of the foster homes, particularly Claire’s depression and anxiety issues.

The novel also reflects movements in the world as a whole at the time in which it was written as the 1990s in the Western world in particular was recognised as being a time in which the growth of multiculturalism was seen. This is seen through the variety of races which Astrid encounters on her journey through life and the way in which Fitch allows them to each have their own identities within their race. However, as capitalist markets in the Western world boomed so did racial and class tension, which is again explored in the text. This was a time in which the world saw the rise of Third Wave feminisms, which not only differ from the second wave in that this was more racially motivated than before, but it also saw the rise of antifeminisms, some key ideas of which are included in the text. 

Is Lionel Shriver’s We Need To Talk About Kevin a simplistic, grotesque reading of Freud’s works or a more ethical social reading of modern day America?

The crude, graphic language of this modern text, at once compelling and repugnant, in fact seems to show that this book is not about either of the topics highlighted above, but about both of them. This language is initially applied to Eva’s (the protagonist’s mother) sexual life with her husband, but as the novel takes a sickening plunge it becomes enmeshed with the murderous violence of the book’s eponymous “hero”, Kevin. Arguably Kevin’s actions are a symbol of the violence taking place in America when Shriver wrote the novel (early 2000s), and Eva’s are those of a sexualised, neurotic mother and thus these two characters encapsulate what I see as being the two key influences on the text.

Firstly, the Freudian scenes lord over the text. Not only are they frequent, but they are memorable because of their graphic and disturbing nature. Shriver confronts us with the sexualisation of a mother-son relationship that is physically and emotionally repellent to us. In my opinion the disgusting nature of their relationship peaks when Kevin masturbates in front of her mother, and yet she does not immediately recoil from this, but watches before telling him to stop. Freud theorised that parents repress their child’s sexuality; all children are born sexual, but are misguided by information given to them by their parents about sex. Thus Shriver exposes what happens if one’s parents do not repress their sexuality. This is scene not only through the Kevin’s phallic stage of development (as highlighted above), but also through his anal one, as he wears nappies for a prolonged period of time, thus pleasing himself through his fecal matter.

However, Shriver takes the opposite view to Freud: she shows that by not repressing the sexual, Oedipal urges of a child towards both his mother and himself the child can still grow up neurotic. Kevin makes no attempt to stop his animosity towards his father, and yet he can conceal it. This act of concealing which is usually performed by the unconscious but here has to be performed by Kevin’s conscious ego creates a great deal of psychical energy within him. This thus erupts and results in him not only killing his father, but shooting him through the penis as an additional wound. The murder appears to arise out of a deep seated hatred of his father as a person, but this specific wound combined with the murder of his younger sister appear to show that this more likely arose out of jealousy regarding his mother’s affection.

Although the novel does have this Freudian foundation, it is a rather complex narrative as Shriver focuses on the mother’s perspective within an ethico-social context. The narrative is written from a retrospective point of view; she is contemplating whether or not the actions Kevin took were a result of him being inherently evil or her poor nurturing. This simple nature-nurture dilemma is never answered in the text, and many people and critics have entirely opposing views on it. Shriver appears to be highlighting that Kevin’s character is not developed because of one of these aspects of his infantile life, but because of a combination of the two.

The disgusting reaction of the community to Eva is also an ethical dilemma: how does one treat someone who has raised a child who has massacred children living in your community? Or perhaps even your own child? Their violent, antisocial reaction links in with the nature/nurture dilemma: are they inherently antisocial and this traumatic event merely worked as a trigger for this or was the event the reason why they behave in this way? All these questions remain an unanswered undercurrent of the book which I believe works as an appropriate antithesis for the simplicity of her Freudian content.