If family disputes and family law interest you, this is a book for you.

The central character is Fiona Maye, a High Court Judge. She presides over the usual, routine disputes between divorcing spouses, who gets what, what happens to the kids. But she also gets to decide what happens to Siamese twins when the hospital wants to sacrifice one to save the other, and the parents disagree. And when the hospital wants to save the life of an almost adult who agrees with his parents, devout followers of Jehovah's Witnesses, that transfusion is not an option. McEwan throws a twist when My Lady's, as they call her, husband announces they are at a low point and he wants to have an affair. Her reaction is quick. The time to ask for an open marriage is before marriage, not after more than twenty years. She asks him to leave immediately and changes the locks. Decisions are what she does.

The stage is set. Will she intervene and override the wishes of both the patient and his parents and save his life? How will the young patient react, and if she rules for the hospital, what will the young man do with his life? What will the parents do? Will her own new situation make her see her role any differently? Will she and her husband have second thoughts and find a way back to each other? Or will they become yet another case before the court?

Normally I like to give the entire plot away in my reviews. In this case, it would probably ruin it for you. You'll have to find out for yourself. ( )

Family Drama

Great story and great writing style. ( )

This book was terrible. There was barely a plot, it was very wordy without actually saying anything, and I felt McEwan's portrayal of a teenage boy was incredibly off. (I've certainly never known any 18 year old boys wanting to kiss 60 year old women...) I continued reading only because I thought it might get better... it didn't. Don't waste your time on this one. ( )

A tough call. Many disagree with reducing the effect of a piece of literature to a simple star rating, but truth be told I do it more for myself and less for others. It's a way of keeping track and a shorthand for the books I enjoyed, or hated, or books that were just middling. A near five-star read for me, this book is written in a register which just works, or does so at least for me. The story of a British High Court judge — specializing in family law? (I can't be sure) — middle age and feeling it, forced to deal with a marriage in strife while she would rather put herself fully into her work, for which she seems to have considerable talent. Novels of manners, novels of the quiet intricacies of family life can go so wrong, so easily, that I'm caught off guard when someone gets it exactly right. Not that this is wholly either, but it is a novel of human intricacies, and this is what seems to trip up so many writers. McEwan seems to remember to make the stories interesting, that in fact the greatest writer of them all would poison, or stab, or rape, or to chase by bear if it came to that, and the greatest sin would be to bore, to have people sitting endless in salons chatting in mutual navel-gazing. My favorite novels are when the writer balances the equation, getting both sides right. Here is the story of these people and they are real, or seem so to us — and here is why this story is interesting absent all of that faffing about. I've read two or three or four other McEwan novels (I've lost track) but at this point I've decided to line them all up in row, everything the man has written, and read them every one, over time. I can offer no higher recommendation than that. ( )