We need to talk about Kevin

Read this review of the book. Beautifully written.

I had talked about this book earlier. This book had won the women-only Orange Prize, the equivalent of Booker Prize for women writers earlier in June. I had mentioned then how this book intrigued me because of the themes it encapsulates within. In a world that glorifies motherhood and treats the mother on par with god, this book questions the many myths surrounding a role women are "expected" to play always. Do all women really look forward to having babies? And do all mothers love their children irrespective of what/who they grow up to be only because they have carried them in their wombs for nine long months? And if the kid grows up to be a wrong man, say a pathological killer, has the woman failed in her role as a mother?

This book, I believe, is important because there is a need to talk about these feelings and address those myths of motherhood that permeate our culture. And there is a need to challenge the whole idea that the bond between a mother and a child is sacred, natural and always loving. Influenced as one is by the cultural images about who a mother is or how she should be forces many a woman to measure their own behaviour against standards prescribed by so-called "experts". In the process truth is lost, and "the mother" becomes just a symbol. The fact that mothers are real and actual women with their own needs, desires, apprehensions, frustrations, dreams and hopes is completely wiped out. That is why this book is important, for Lionel Shriver's book attempts to unravel the real woman lost in layers of sterotypes perpetuated through generations.