We Need to Talk About Kevin

by Lionel Shriver

Only a country that feels invulnerable can afford political turmoil as entertainment.

few Armenian Americans share their compatriots’ smug sense of security.

“Of course, for ages black kids and Hispanic kids have been shooting each other in shithole junior high schools in Detroit,” I opined over a late dinner that night, “and that’s all very by-the-by. A few white kids, middle-class kids, protected, private-telephone-line, own-their-own-TV suburban kids go ballistic, and suddenly it’s a national emergency.