Ian McEwan

While not a devotee of Ian McEwan, I was flat blown away by his hefty 500-page epic novel, LESSONS . (2022). It will appeal to anyone who appreciates fine writing, but I suspect people of my age group (I'm 80) will especially relish the story of Roland Baines, a boomer born to a British Army Major shortly after the close of the Second World War. He spent much of his childhood at army posts in Libya and Germany before being sent, at eleven, to a boys boarding school in England, where he spent the next five years. It was during the Cuban Missile Crisis that Roland rudely came of age, at the hands of his piano teacher, a woman eleven years older, in an abusive relationship that continued for two years, and was to have profound and far-reaching effects. He dropped out of school and spent years wandering the globe, unable to commit himself to either family or any one profession. An early marriage ends when his wife deserts him, leaving him to raise their son on his own, and he engages in numerous serial monogamous affairs, living on the edge of poverty for years. His wife, on the other hand goes on to become one of Germany's most famous writers.

Buy this is only a small kernel of the story McEwan's omniscient narrator tells in this sprawling tale of world wars and the many changes, historical, political, technological and cultural, that took place over the past 75 or 80 years. And those events and changes are all folded into the intimate details of the fractured family history of Roland Baines and his parents, grandparents, siblings and half-siblings, a history of long-kept secrets, cruelty and heartbreak.

But enough said. I know 500 pages is a major investment of time for any reader, but I savored every page. McEwen has obviously done his research, but he also lived through the times represented here, and then added fictionalized elements from his own life and family. I googled him, and he's just a few years younger than I am. And I was hooked from the Cuban Missile Crisis era of the book. His Roland Baines was fourteen then. I was eighteen and in the middle weeks of Basic Training with the US Army at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. A very tense and terrifying time. Hell yes, I remember.

This is one helluva good book. I loved it. My very highest recommendation.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER… (more)