Sweet Tooth

My dearest Tom, Upon reading your letter, my first impulse was to burn the accompanying package, walk away, and be done with us forever. But, as you seem to have uncannily predicted, I've now spent a couple of days and nights in your flat, devouring your manuscript and sleeping in between the sheets,......more

What a disappointment -- the vivid passions that animate Atonement (even its "trick", which in retrospect seems too similar) have become cramped cleverness, just as, perhaps, the heroic World War II London of Atonement becomes the gray decline of the early 70s London of Sweet Tooth. To sum it up, I......more

The opening paragraph of Sweet Tooth reveals the story's end, which is a tidy way of compelling you, dear reader, to focus on the important parts - the middle and such. You know it ends badly, so you can't possibly be disappointed; therefore, don't worry about it. But then you remember that you are r......more

The American edition of Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan's latest novel, has a delightful cover - an image of a woman standing at a train station, looking over the tracks and into the distance. The image is in sepia, and the font in which the author and the title are printed have obviously been carefully pre......more

Another egotistical effort by the English maestro. (A writer that knows how important & essential the writer is and don't you forget it.) But this one is not the atrocious ego-driven character bullshit "Saturday," nor the slow & ultimately unengaging unengagement tale "On Chesil Beach." Thank god! (......more