etc.

Atonement, Ian McEwan
Unabridged Audiobook 2003

I’m not sure why it took me four tries to get through this book. By the time I was on track 14 on disc 10 (I “read” it on audio), I was tightening my grip on the steering wheel, pursing my lips, and willing it not to end. It’s been a little while since that happened and it almost never happens with audio.

The book is set in the summer of 1935, Briony Tallis is a precocious 13-year old aspiring playwright/author who has written a short play to honour the return of her brother. A lot of the action, probably all of Part 1, takes place on the day of his arrival, which is also the day the young Tallis cousins from the North arrive for a respite away from their feuding (and divorcing) parents. Briony enlists her cousins to act in the performance but a series of events makes the impending performance fall apart, and her ensuing actions make most everything else fall apart too. One element that struck me about this book was the way McEwan managed to capture the melodrama and euphoria of youth which left me partially annoyed with Briony but also rooting for her all the way. And no more spoilers, the narrative has a delicious what’s-next feel to it, in the manner of a lot of good, Victorian storytelling, and I’m wont to give any of it away.