Lessons

A Novel

By: Ian McEwan

Narrated by: Simon McBurney

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY VOGUE • THE NEW YORKER • THE GUARDIAN • VOX • THE WASHINGTON POST • BOOKPAGE

Both epic and intimate, the story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic—from #1 bestselling author Ian McEwan.

When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines’s life is turned upside down. 2,000 miles from his mother’s protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life.

From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means—music, literature, friends, sex, politics and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past?

Epic, mesmerising and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man’s lifetime.

©2022 Ian McEwan (P)2022 Knopf Canada

Critic reviews

“Brilliant . . . Nobody is better at writing about entropy and indignity — among other topics — than Ian McEwan. . . . One way to read Lessons is as a self-repudiation of the maneuver at which McEwan has become virtuosic. More authors should repudiate their virtuosity. The results are exciting.” (The New York Times Book Review)

“A profound demonstration of [McEwan's] remarkable skill. . . . Indeed, even more than McEwan’s 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.” (The Washington Post)

“Astonishing. . . . McEwan, who is steeped in the sounds and rhythms of English literature, and for whom novels and poems practically assume the importance of characters, has written a masterpiece of a novel that is simultaneously about the business of growing up and getting old, and the business of writing fiction. . . . How does McEwan pull it off? Through the patient accretion of closely observed detail and one beautiful, shimmering sentence after another.” (USA Today)

Contemplative and Satisfying

The novel is simple. The life of a man. His formative years; disappointments, joys, tragedies. A meditation on the choices one makes and how, in the end, a life well lived is not necessarily one of success and acclaim. This might be one of McEwan's strongest efforts in a while. Perhaps even, one of his most personal. Take time to listen, it is worth the ride.

Loved this book

I wish I could rewind and listen from the start again. Sort of like my life.