If an individual ditches her family for career, does it make a difference if that person is the best at what she does or if she’s mediocre or if she stinks?) I’d highly recommend this novel for readers of literary fiction. I found this to be a powerful story that asks one to confront all manner of intriguing questions. thinking one knows the author’s intentions and subjective thought processes from what she writes. Second, we are offered insight into the “intentional fallacy” – i.e. her husband being suspected of a murder that never happened,) we are reminded that disappearing dads are par for the course we may think poorly of them, but we rarely have an intense emotional response to such situations.

A brilliant, beautifully written, and gripping book about lives imperfectly lived. First, after developing an intense and visceral dislike for Alissa because she abandons a baby and seems so oblivious to the suffering her actions have caused (e.g. Lessons is a chronicle for our timesan epic, engaging, and profoundly humanistic reflection on history and humanity through the lens of one man’s existence. We also witness the intergenerational learning of Alissa, whose mother never made good on her own potential as a writer.

Finally, when a woman, Daphne, comes along with whom he can at last have a healthy relationship with a dependable partner, he has difficulty embracing the relationship because of his earlier experiences. There is Alissa, the wife who abandons Roland and their seven-month-old child to pursue her writing career. There is Miriam, his piano teacher at boarding school, a woman who enters into a manipulative sexual relationship with Roland while he’s still a minor. The story follows the protagonist, Roland Baines, as he receives a series of harsh life lessons, at the center of each is a woman.

This book not only shows the characters learning their lessons, it has a few teachings for the reader, as well. Indeed, even more than McEwans previous novels, Lessons is a story that so fully embraces its historical context that it calls into question the synthetic timelessness of much contemporary fiction. Get Speechify to make any book an audiobook Lessons by Ian McEwan, 9780593535202, available at Book Depository with free delivery worldwide.

Lessons book by ian mcewan