Ian McEwan is the author of two collections of stories and twelve previous novels, including Enduring Love, Amsterdam, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998, Atonement and, most recently, Solar. One windy spring day in the Chilterns Joe Rose’s calm, organised life is shattered by a ballooning accident. The afternoon, Rose reflects, could have ended in mere tragedy, but for his brief meeting with Jed Parry. Unknown to Rose, something passes between them – something that gives birth in Parry to an obsession so powerful that it will test to the limits Rose’s beloved scientific rationalism, threaten the love of his wife Clarissa and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
‚I cannot remember the last time I read a novel so beautifully written or utterly compelling from the very first page’ Bill Bryson, Sunday Times
McEwan’s exploration of his characters’ lives and secret emotions is a virtuoso display of fictional subtlety and intelligence A page-turner, with a plot so engrossing that it seems reckless to pick the book up in the evening if you plan to get any sleep that night Taut with narrative excitement and suspense…a novel of rich diversity that triumphantly integrates imagination and intelligence, rationality and emotional alertness He is the maestro at creating suspense: the particular, sickening, see-sawing kind that demands a kind of physical courage from the reader to continue reading Hypnotically readable