Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow high-school students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher Because he was only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a prison for young offenders in upstate New York Telling the story of Kevin's upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of letters Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood in general and Kevin in particular How much is her fault?