We Need to Talk About Kevin Chapter 2: November 15, 2000 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Eva is writing this letter at the time of the Bush/Gore election. No one yet knows who the president will be, and frankly, Franklin, Eva doesn't care.
  • Instead, Eva wants to flashback to 1982, when she and Franklin were deciding whether or not to have a kid.
  • After having dinner with their friends, Brian and Louise, who had given up a life of snorting cocaine for two daughters, Eva and Franklin talk about having a kid.
  • Eva is kind of bored, so instead of, we don't know, reading a book or going to a movie, she thinks she might want a baby.
  • Eva admits in her letter that she "wanted someone else to love" (2.77).
  • Eva recalls another incident in which she and Franklin talked smack about their own parents to their friends.
  • Eva wonders at what point that stops being cute. Maybe they should have a kid who will one day grow up to talk smack about them.
  • Eva wants someone who makes "new stories, about which [she] would have new opinions" (2.104).
  • This is going to be quite a story, we can tell. Be careful what you wish for, Eva.