Essential Reading

I have just finished a magnificently good novel.
The Child In Time, by Ian McEwan. It’s the seventh McEwan book I have read and he never ceases to amaze me, but this one was exceptionally good.
It is a story that works on so many levels… overall it is somewhat of a psychological-thriller/love-romance thing. It is bracketed with intensely fever-pitch emotionally charged opening and closing chapters, with some really magical magical realism interspersed throughout the body of the story.
Stephen Lewis is a writer of children’s books. Successful. Happily married. Tickety-boo!
One sunny morning he trots off to the supermarket with his three-year old daughter, Kate. Later, at the checkout line, in a flash, in an instant, she is gone.
Vanished.
[Don’t worry, I will say no more along these lines… will not spoil the story for you, but even the jacket-blurb will tell you as much as I have just revealed….]
This is only Chapter One!
I have rarely read anything so real. So vividly drawn my heart raced, I was frantic, and I am not even the parent of a child.
What will happen to Stephen’s marriage as a result of this loss? Or to his career as a writer? How will Stephen and his wife Julie cope, as the Kateless years begin to unravel around them?
Will Kate ever be found? The possibilities are endless, and McEwan keeps the inner tension equally endless. It is amazing what McEwan is able to do with the last few pages of the book. [Don’t peek. DO NOT peek].
It is a hauntingly good read.
A journey to the very depths of profound grief. Rising towards hope.
You know how sometimes you finish a novel and you set it down and you are a bit underwhelmed, and you regret having spent that much time to be rewarded with just that final disappointed sigh? [Same thing happens at movies, when the credits start rolling and you stare at the screen and think “What?”]
Well, when I set down The Child In Time, just last evening, my thoughts were more like, “Wow! That was seriously gut-wrenchingly worthwhile.”
This is one of his best.
McEwan is definitely one of the very best authors out there.

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