On Chesil Beach (Reprint) (Paperback) by Ian McEwan

About the Book

From the acclaimed author of "Atonement" comes a novel of remarkable depth and poignancy. Set in 1962, "On Chesil Beach" captures with understanding and compassion the innocence of a young newlywed couple at a time when marriage has been presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence.

Book Synopsis

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan

The bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Atonement brilliantly illuminates the collision of sexual longing, deep-seated fears, and romantic fantasy on a young couple's wedding night.

It is 1962, and Florence and Edward are celebrating their wedding in a hotel on the Dorset coast. Yet as they dine, the expectation of their marital duties become overwhelming. Unbeknownst to them both, the decisions they make this night will resonate throughout their lives. With exquisite prose, Ian McEwan creates in On Chesil Beach a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

Review Quotes

"Heartbreaking. . . . Breathtaking. . . . Masterly. . . . No one now writing in English surpasses or even matches McEwan's accomplishment. --The Washington Post Book World

"Remarkable, engaging, and gripping. . . . On Chesil Beach is not only a wonderful read but also perhaps that rarest of things: a perfect novel. --San Francisco Chronicle

"Dazzling. . . . McEwan treats [his subject] with a boundless sympathy, one that enlists the reader even as it disguises the fact that this seeming novel of manners is as fundamentally a horror novel as any [he's] written. --Jonathan Lethem, The New York Times Book Review

"A small, perfect, haunting work of art. . . . McEwan draws a humane, touching, sometimes comic portrait of marital misunderstanding in an era when so much less was sayable, or said. --Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Vintage McEwan. . . . His finely honed prose is a deep pleasure to experience. --Chicago Sun-Times

"Marvelously realized. . . .Wrenching, funny, smart, and hugely gratifying in unexpected ways. . . . On Chesil Beach is as merciful to its characters as it is merciless in its heartbreak. --The Boston Globe

"Exquisite. . . . compressed, crisp, [and] warmly specific. . . .[A] small masterpiece. --Entertainment Weekly, "A"

"Quietly riveting. . . . McEwan has never written more beautifully than he does in [this] melancholy and haunting new novel. --O, The Oprah Magazine

"A poignant meditation on love's ebb and flow. --Vogue

"A parable of failed empathy . . . mordant [and] melancholy. --The Village Voice

"Completely absorbing. . . . [I]nfused with a bitter poignancy...intense and powerful . . . a masterpiece. --The Philadelphia Inquirer

About The Author

Ian McEwan is the bestselling author of seventeen books, including the novels Nutshell; The Children Act; Sweet Tooth; Solar, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize; On Chesil Beach; Saturday; Atonement, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the W. H. Smith Literary Award; The Comfort of Strangers and Black Dogs, both short-listed for the Booker Prize; Amsterdam, winner of the Booker Prize; and The Child in Time, winner of the Whitbread Award; as well as the story collections First Love, Last Rites, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Between the Sheets.