We need to talk about Kevin

The novel's narrator, a former travel writer who writes a series of letters to her estranged husband reflecting on her own ambivalence toward motherhood.

Eva and Franklin's son, a withdrawn and manipulative teenager whose difficult upbringing and eventual actions form the center of Eva's account.

Eva's husband and Kevin's father, an optimistic, conventionally minded American whose view of their son clashes with Eva's own doubts.

Eva and Franklin's younger daughter, a gentle and sensitive child whose contrast with her brother Kevin sharpens the family's tensions.

A local mother who confronts Kevin's parents about his troubling behavior in the years before the shooting, and later pursues legal action against Eva.