Say nothing

To my embarrassment, ever since my novel We Need to Talk About Kevin was published in 2003, I’ve been a go-to girl regarding American mass murders. I’m embarrassed because my credentials are so poor — I’m only an expert on a school killer I made up — and because I’ve so little to say. That’s one of the standard reactions to these things, whose scale seems only to escalate: being struck dumb. That’s why Sky News and the BBC ring me up. They’re desperate, you see. They have nothing to say either.

In the days I accepted many of these gigs, I made what I hoped was one serviceable point. As most of the shooters want attention, surely our mistake is to give it to them. The press going large about these atrocities, combing through the culprits’ every available biographical titbit for weeks, only inspires other would-be killers, who often yearn to be famous so badly that even posthumous celebrity will do.