The ten beastliest brats in fiction

For the Guardian, Michael Hogan tagged the ten best fictional evil children, including:

Kevin Khatchadourian
We Need to Talk About Kevin

Lionel Shriver’s 2003 Orange prize-winning novel, whose title has become much spoofed, is structured around mother Eva writing letters to her estranged husband in a bid to come to terms with the fact that their sociopathic son committed a school massacre. Obnoxious, cunning Kevin is obsessed with archery, kills his little sister’s pet rodents, half-blinds her with caustic drain cleaner and seems to loathe pretty much everyone – especially his mother, with whom he has an unsettlingly adversarial relationship. Despite its troubled development, the BBC-funded, Lynne Ramsay-directed 2011 film version was excellent, starring Tilda Swinton as Eva and Ezra Miller as Kevin.

Read about another entry on the list. 

We Need to Talk about Kevin is on Fiona Maazel's list of the ten worst fathers in books, John Mullan's list of ten of the best sentences as book titles, and Shirley Henderson's six best books list.

--Marshal Zeringue