The novel opens in 1986 with Roland Baines halfway through his life and coming to terms with his wife walking out on him and their baby son. His first task is to convince the police that he has not killed her, or maybe that is second after the demands of the seven month old infant.
From there the narrative spills out forwards and backwards, sporadically chronicling Roland’s life of paths chosen and opportunities missed. Prominence is given to pivot points that he realises shaped him and his place in the world: an unsettled childhood; a relationship with his school piano teacher; meeting, marrying, and losing Alissa; then his love and ongoing care for his son. Everything revolves around and comes back to those things.
Slow, languorous Ian McEwan prose makes the five hundred or so word-packed pages a pleasure to read, get immersed in, and ponder. There are instances of passion, tension, and humour set against the background of key world events of the period, from the aftermath of the Second World War, through the Cuban missile crisis and the fall of the Berlin wall, to Brexit and COVID.
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