We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

Franklin!”
    “A million and a half people!” you chimed in, gesticulating wildly. “Do you realize it was what the Young Turks did to the Armenians in 1915 that gave Hitler the idea for the Holocaust ?”
    I glared.
    “Eva, your brother’s got two kids. There are a million Armenians in the U.S. alone. Nobody’s about to disappear.”
    “But you care about your last name just because it’s yours. I care about mine—well, it seems more important.”
    “My parents would have a cow. They’d think I was denying them. Or that I was under your thumb. They’d think I was an asshole.”
    “I should get varicose veins for a Plaskett ? It’s a gross name!”
    You looked stung. “You never said you didn’t like my name.”
    “That wide A , it’s kind of blaring and crass—”
    “Crass!”
    “It’s just so awfully American . It reminds me of fat nasal tourists in Nice whose kids all want ice cream. Who shout, Honey, look at that ‘Pla-a-askett’ when it’s French and the word’s really pronounced plah-skay .”
    “It’s not Plah-skay , you anti-American prig! It’s Plaskett, a small but old and respectable Scottish family, and a name I’d be proud to hand on to my kids! Now I know why you didn’t take it when we got married. You hated my name!”
    “I’m sorry! Obviously I love your name in a way, if only because it’s your name—”
    “Tell you what,” you proposed; in this country, the injured party enjoyed a big advantage. “If it’s a boy, it’s a Plaskett. A girl, and you can have your Khatchadourian .”
    I pushed the bread basket aside and jabbed your chest. “So a girl doesn’t matter to you. If you were Iranian, she’d be kept home from school. If you were Indian, she’d be sold to a stranger for a cow. If you were Chinese, she’d be starved to death and buried in the backyard—”
    You raised your hands. “If it’s a girl it’s a Plaskett, then! But on one condition: None of this Gara-souvlaki stuff for a boy’s first name. Something American . Deal?”
    It was a deal. And in hindsight we made the right decision. In 1996, fourteen-year-old Barry Loukaitis killed a teacher and two students while taking a whole class hostage in Moses Lake, Washington. A year later, thirteen-year-old Tronneal Mangum shot dead a boy at his middle school who owed him $40. The next month, sixteen-year-old Evan Ramsey killed a student and his principal and wounded two others in Bethel, Alaska. That fall, sixteen-year-old Luke Woodham murdered his mother and two students, wounding seven, in Pearl, Mississippi. Two months later, fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal shot dead three students and wounded five in Paducah, Kentucky. The next spring in 1998, thirteen-year-old Mitchell Johnson and eleven-year-old Andrew Golden opened fire on their high school, killing one teacher and four students, wounding ten, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. A month after that, fourteen-year-old Andrew Wurst killed a teacher and wounded three students in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. The following month in Springfield, Oregon, fifteen-year-old Kip Kinkel massacred both his parents, proceeding to kill two more students and wounding twenty-five. In 1999, and a mere ten days after a certain Thursday , eighteen-year-old Eric Harris and seventeen-year-old Dylan Klebold planted bombs in their Littleton, Colorado, high school and went on a shooting rampage that killed one teacher and twelve students, while wounding twenty-three, after which they shot themselves. So young Kevin—your choice—has turned out as American as a Smith and Wesson.
    As for his surname, our son has done more to keep the name Khatchadourian alive than anyone else in my family.
     
    Like so many of our neighbors who latched onto tragedy to stand out from the crowd—slavery, incest, a suicide—I had exaggerated the ethnic chip on my shoulder for effect. I’ve learned since that tragedy is not to be hoarded. Only the untouched, the well-fed and contented, could possibly