Lessons: The bestselling novel from the author of Atonement - Softcover

McEwan, Ian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1529116325 ISBN 13: 9781529116328

Publisher: Vintage, 2023

Synopsis

The story of a life. The story of the year.

'Lessons shows [McEwan] at the very peak of his powers. He has written his masterpiece' Daily Telegraph

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Twenty-five years later Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes, and he is left alone with their baby son. Her disappearance sparks of journey of discovery that will continue for decades, as Roland confronts the reality of his rootless existence and attempts to embrace the uncertainty - and freedom - of his future.

'Ian McEwan is a masterful storyteller' Elif Shafak

'A beautiful book about love, loss and regret' Observer

'Luminous, beautifully written... about lives imperfectly lived' Vogue

'A whole, unruly life between the covers of a single book: a literary feat' Spectator

'A tour de force... A single life is silhouetted against global happenings' Sunday Times

* A Book of the Year for The Times, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Spectator, New Statesman, Washington Post, Vogue and New Yorker *

About this title

About the Author

Ian McEwan is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.

From the Back Cover

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means - music, literature, friends, sex, politics and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?

Epic, mesmerising and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times - a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.

Edition details

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1529116325
• ISBN 13: 9781529116328
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 496