She also relates her current life: she was involved in both her son's criminal trial and a civil action against her (for parental negligence) brought by the mother of one of Kevin's victims.
She sold the family home to pay for legal expenses, but in order to be near Claverack Juvenile Correctional Facility where Kevin is incarcerated, she still lives in the same town in which she remains shunned by the community.
Eva perceives him as deliberately antagonistic, with his behavior ranging from petty sabotage to possibly encouraging a girl to gouge out her eczema-affected skin.
When Kevin is severely ill as a child, he briefly accepts Eva's care for the first time and rejects Franklin, seemingly too tired to put on an act of apathy.
As he grows older, he also takes an interest in manipulating his sycophantic friend Leonard, engaging in vandalism, and collecting computer viruses on floppy disks.
He unsettles his peers, expresses disdain for convention by wearing uncomfortably undersized clothes, and follows news of school shooters and mass murderers.
When she is six years old, her pet elephant shrew disappears; the sink in the children's bathroom becomes clogged, which Eva clears with a caustic drain cleaner.
Eva speculates that he did this because separation in the divorce would deny him a final victory over his mother, or to avoid being trapped in performing normality for Franklin.
Kevin ensured himself a light sentence by timing the attack for three days before his 16th birthday in order to be charged as a minor, and used a prescription for Prozac to argue that he was experiencing violent psychotic episodes as a side effect.
Shriver focuses on the relative importance of innate characteristics and personal experiences in determining character and behavior, primarily in regard to Kevin.
Shriver also identifies American optimism and "high-hopes-crushed" as one of the novel's primary themes, as represented by Franklin, the narrator's husband, who serves as "the novel's self-willed optimist about the possibility of a happy family.