Aspects of evil

AS a novelist who says she loves an argument, Lionel Shriver cannot have been disappointed by the reaction to We Need to Talk About Kevin.
The American author and journalist - currently based in London - was fielding questions on her writing at the Humber Mouth literary festival at Zest. And although the event briefly touched on her latest release, Double Fault - a novel about love in the world of competitive tennis - it was Kevin, the book which caused controversy for its depiction of a murderous boy which drew the most questions from the audience.
Shriver read an extract from the book, which had won the Orange Prize for fiction in 2005, in which Eva, Kevin's mother, expresses her ambivalence to the news she is pregnant. Her ambivalence, once Kevin is born, hardens into dislike. The horrific events which follow, when Kevin guns down seven of his classmates, a cafeteria worker and a teacher, led to the book being condemned by Catholic websites for being 'anti-family', and Shriver parting company with her agent.
"She loathed it," Shriver told the crowd at the Newland cafe bar. "She thought it was evil." The novel, Shriver's seventh, was touted around in a hostile climate.
"It was post 9/11, so there was a general feeling that America would not tolerate violence in its culture. But if anything, America became more violent."
Shriver's determination to get the book published was vindicated by the award, the sale of film rights and something of a personal victory against her former agent - marrying her ex-husband.
And wherever Shriver goes, the novel continues to draw strong responses - even if some are a little baffling.
"I had one reader berate me as to why Kevin had not been sent to see a psychiatrist, and that was from someone who was not even an American! " she said.
The book had drawn on the spate of school shootings in America - such as the Columbine High School massacre - and Shriver focusing on the thought that there are no barriers to what we do in life.
"There is nothing to stop me picking up a knife and cutting myself, or walking out into the road in front of a bus, " she said.
"That realisation can be very dangerous for some people."
Shriver had shyed away from interviewing those connected with the shooting incidents, and instead researched the killings on the internet.
Despite the reams of information she had pulled up about the events, Shriver felt conclusions could not be drawn.
"There is no reason why" she said.
Shriver continues to write journalism, but says she is constantly developing characters for her fiction every time she meets people - melding them into a "slurry" of personalities for her to draw on at a later date.
Later, as she sat in the corner of the room busily scribbling autographs and chatting, I went to get my copy of the novel signed. We exchanged a couple of pleasanteries, but I could not help but notice the intensity of her gaze -which had raked across the audience during her reading. Up close it was penetrating, even uncomfortable. Whenever you meet a writer, remember that they steal a little bit of your soul.