I started this book a while ago. Then I got pregnant and I put it down. It’s been almost a year since having my first son and I only just felt emotionally safe enough to read it. I think probably most adults faced with the imminent prospect of children think, however fleetingly, about what to do if their child is just…. bad. I didn’t want those thoughts in my head as I grew and got to know my baby son, so I waited to pick this book back up again.
Luckily I did not need to fear this book. While it is truly a masterpiece, my one complaint is that the character of Kevin didn’t really feel like a real person to me. To come out so immediately calculating and manipulative is just not something that any baby is capable of. It’s an observation fueled probably by all the other books I’ve read lately about infant brain development due to having just had my own child. But Kevin was so immediately unrelenting in his deliberate pursuit of being his mother’s worst nightmare that it made his character lack believability and dimension.
It’s this that also made Kevin’s behavior in the final chapters suspicious to me. To be what he was portrayed to have been straight out of the womb when his brain was only partially developed can only mean that it was supposed to be his nature. And then to suddenly behave in ways contrary to his nature, despite whatever he was experiencing at Claverack, just rings false. Because of this I probably was much less emotionally impacted than I could have been.
That is where my complaints end however. Lionel Shriver is absolutely brilliant in her use of language and her bravery in exploring areas of the human psyche (primarily Eva)that are a little scary, and that we all keep to ourselves is something I really appreciate. The pacing of the story was perfect, and I was unable to put it down. Between this book and “The Post Birthday World” she is a writer whose new work I will be gobbling up as soon as I can get my hands on it. I can’t wait until her next release.
This book has been sitting in my “to read” pile for several years and your review made me decide to tackle it soon. Thanks.
Awesome! Despite my complaints, it was a very satisfying read!
I hated this book so much. Hate hate hate hate hate hated it. I really liked your review, because my unreasonable white-hot hatred rendered me incapable of appreciating anything about it, and in fact she is a pretty darned good writer and as you noted, the pacing is excellent.
I read it differently (while reading it pregnant with my 3rd child…the number of children has no bearing on this, but I wouldn’t have read it during my 1st preganncy). When I had my first child I endured postpartum depression in absolute harrowing silence. I did not like my child. I thought he cried too much. I thought he would puke on me on purpose. It hurts me to write these things because (they were insane and untrue) and after several months of not talking to anyone about it, I got help. I realized how wonderful my child was and then immediately found out I was pregnant again and got scared it was going to happen all over again (it didn’t!).
But I took the mom’s descriptions about Kevin as young baby and even as a child as flawed/unreliable and/or her inability to nurture, with ended up developing the young adult he turned out to be. I saw her speaking from a postpartum perspective but I could’ve been totally projecting. That said, I agree with you–it was annoying that it was implied that it was a “from birth thing”. I don’t buy it.
(First off, I’m sorry that happened to you. Postpartum depression sounds horrid.)
I also read the book in the same light, that everything we read about Kevin was filtered through his mother’s perception of him. So, demon baby wasn’t so much a born evil baby, just a fussy baby to a mom that might have been a bit ambivalent about having children to begin with, coupled with some postpartum depression and an emotionally oblivious husband.