So, he’s done it again. From the title, which serves both as reference to a 1989 Act regarding child welfare, and also (maybe) a handy, short sentence reminding us of children’s – or this child’s? – real, though limited, power and determination, to the very last paragraph, there are simply no extraneous words. Marvelous.
I don’t even want to go into the plot. I just want to say that the building tension is so expertly executed you hardly notice it’s happened. I think it’s Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale who used the term “subterranean hum” to describe that feeling of unspecified dread, and while this is a wildly different type of worry, I think the comparison is solid.
It’s funny — I didn’t especially like Fiona (the main character) or her one-dimensional husband, and certainly some plot points are implausible, but wow, his writing is fantastic. It gets out of its own way. Sadly, it’s been quite some time since I finished a book in 24 hours, but this one I couldn’t put down.
I wholeheartedly agree – especially with your conclusion; McEwan is a fantastic writer – but I thought the ending was such a cop-out.
Yeah, I’ve felt the endings were lacking in several of his books. Weird, since on the whole I adore them.