We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

“Everything seems so sorted out,” I lamented. “Wing and a Prayer has taken off so that the only thing that could really happen to me professionally is for the company to go belly-up. I could always make more money—but I’m a thrift-shop junkie, Franklin, and I don’t know what to do with it. Money bores me, and it’s starting to change the way we live in a way I’m not totally comfortable with. Plenty of people don’t have a kid because they can’t afford one. For me it would a relief to find something of consequence to spend it on.” “I’m not of consequence?” “You don’t want enough.” “New jump rope?” “Ten bucks.” “Well,” you conceded, “at least a kid would answer the Big Question.” I could be perverse, too. “What big question?” “You know,” you said lightly, and drew out with an emcee drawl, “the old e-e-existential dilemma.” I did not put my finger on why, but your Big Question left me unmoved. I far preferred my turn of the page. “I could always traipse off to a new country—” “Any left? You go through countries the way most folks go through socks.” “Russia,” I noted. “But I’m not, for once, threatening to ransom my life to Aeroflot. Because lately ... everywhere seems kind of the same. Countries all have different food, but they all have food, know what I mean?”