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Lead book review

Ian McEwan’s capacity for reinvention is astonishing

Ian McEwan’s latest novel is unusually long and autobiographical. It’s surprising in other ways, too, says Claire Lowdon

10 September 2022

9:00 AM

10 September 2022

9:00 AM

Lessons Ian McEwan

Jonathan Cape, pp.496, 20

McEwanesque. What would that even mean? The dark psychological instability of The Comfort of Strangers and Enduring Love? The gleeful comedy of Solar and Nutshell? The smart social realism of Saturday and The Children Act? The metafictional games of Atonement and Sweet Tooth? Ian McEwan’s brilliant capacity for reinvention is a hallmark of his literary career.

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