We come to know both Roland’s father, and his mother Rosalind, as their lives are unravelled over time.Įveryone has a complicated family, and the families of both Roland and Alissa involved fathers who were in charge, and women who looked after the needs of their husbands and raised the children. He misses Africa, his home and school, the place itself. Then Roland’s return to England, to boarding school, the shock of it all. In tandem with the present-day story, we read about the past and Roland’s youth, in North Africa with his parents, his father in the military. It is 1986, there is concern about the spread of radiation from the The Chernobyl disaster. Roland is not especially concerned, but the police certainly are. Alissa, mother of Lawrence, wife of Roland, has disappeared. We meet Roland Baines when he is 37 years old, the father of seven-month-old Lawrence. It is certainly a novel that reflects life as those of us now in our 70s have lived it, and are living it now. His most recent novel, Lessons, is perhaps one of his best. Ian McEwan is an author whose books I have read over all my adult life.
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