Re-jacketed in stunning new series style for 2023, On Chesil Beach is a compact and devastating novel from the Booker Prize-winning, Sunday Times-bestselling Ian McEwan
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE AND NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE
It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their private fears of the wedding night to come and, unbeknownst to them both, the events of the evening will haunt them for the rest of their lives.
'McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us' Guardian
Industry Reviews
Wonderful...exquisite...devastating * Independent on Sunday *
Exquisitely crafted * Evening Standard *
Superb... The protagonists have everything to lose, and their faltering journey towards a point of no return is conjured into life my McEwan with irresistible subtlety, tact and force * Financial Times *
On Chesil Beach is more than an event. It is a masterpiece -- Karl Miller * Times Literary Supplement *
This is McEwan's mature style, one we have come to recognise from Atonement and Saturday. It is a polished, civilised style, and very distant from the shock tactics of his early work... McEwan brings Florence and Edward touchingly alive for us; and their seriousness, their idealism, and their desire for love draw us towards them -- Natasha Walter * Guardian *
To commend an author for being reminiscent of Edith Wharton is a compliment that this reviewer reserves for a select few. Yet with On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan has earnt it -- Lionel Shriver * Telegraph *
A master feat of concentration in both senses of the word -- Peter Kemp * Sunday Times *
Written with a fierce pursuit of the truth and an utterly modern self-awareness, what a confidant tour de force this turns out to be * Sunday Express *
One of our greatest living writers. Many Easter weekends and train journeys will be enlivened by a compelling novella -- Christopher Dolan * Herald *
It is a masterpiece. The very idea that informs it, fascinating and unfamiliar, is masterly -- Karl Miller * TLS *