I love that this is Chapter 1.

I’ve just finished reading Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin. I think it may just be one of my favourite books.  I don’t know what that says about me, considering the premise of the novel centres on the fact that the protagonist’s son shot 9 people one afternoon in high school. Regardless, it’s a fascinating read and I am looking forward to watching the movie, which was praised personally by the author.

Essentially, it’s a story of revisiting the past, evaluating regrets, and learning just how peculiar human nature truly is.  Eva, the narrator and protagonist, tells the story through a series of letters she writes to her estranged husband, remembering their life before their first born, Kevin, as well as what it was like to carry him inside of her, feeling distant from and uneasy about him all the while. Eva indulges in things she had left unsaid, as if cleansing her mind of what could have been and how she truly felt at any given time.  You follow her through the rise and fall of her marriage, two pregnancies, her career, her own memories, all collecting together toward the metaphorical a-bomb that was “Thursday” - the day her 16 year old son became a mass murderer.

It’s an articulate, honest (sometimes, brutally), and deeply personal telling of womanhood, motherhood, and that specific kind of self-reflection that second guesses the past and looks to reconcile regret with acceptance.

Watch the trailer here.

Currently reading. Please Kill Me: An Uncensored Oral History of Punk.

It’s pretty fascinating, a total inside look at the early punk scene. Mostly American so far, discussing Andy Warhol and the Factory scene, The Velvet Underground, Iggy Pop and the Stooges, MC5, Patti Smith, David Bowie, The New York Dolls…

Pretty wild stuff.  A lot of drugs, a lot of sex and of course, a helluva lot of rock and roll.