We Need to Talk About Kevin: Chapter 1: November 8, 2000 Summary & Analysis

In a letter to her estranged husband, Franklin, a woman (later revealed to be Eva Khatchadourian) writes that she misses telling Franklin anecdotes about her day. She doesn’t like to go out in public anymore because people stare at her due to an incident that happened a year prior. Earlier in the day, the woman sees Mary Woolford at the supermarket. She is startled and avoids Mary, noting that Mary has taken her to court before. When the woman isn’t looking, Mary Woolford smashes the eggs in the woman’s cart. In the letter, the woman writes that she has a new house and that she lives close to Kevin. 

The woman, Eva Khatchadourian, goes on to say that she doesn’t feel “real,” and that she lost her appetite for several months. One day, she discovers that some neighbors have covered her house in red enamel. She doesn’t want to hire someone to remove the enamel because she doesn’t want to flaunt her wealth to her neighbors, so the woman laboriously picks it off by hand over several days. She notes how, during “the trial,” the papers described her as looking stoic and unemotional, but Eva discloses to Franklin that she was holding back her true feelings.

Eva writes that even following her “personal apocalypse,” minor inconveniences like cold weather and lost mail still affect her. She also tells Franklin that she sold her old house for more than $3 million—the property sold easily because it’s infamous. Eva imagines the buyers entertaining guests in the house and telling them that Kevin murdered nine people. She imagines the buyers saying that Kevin’s parents didn’t raise him well.