Tag Archives: Women’s Prize for Fiction 2023

Lessons by Ian McEwan spans the life of Roland Baines, born shortly after the Second World War. Taking in several major world crises from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Chernobyl disaster to the COVID-19 pandemic as well as intimate domestic events, ‘Lessons’ is a sprawling epic and easily McEwan’s longest novel. Some elements of Roland’s early life are strongly autobiographical, including his childhood spent partly in Libya and his discovery late in life that he has a half-brother, as McEwan did in 2002. However, it is the repercussions from the piano lessons Roland received at boarding school that have the most significant impact on his life. I read but didn’t review McEwan’s previous novel ‘Machines Like Me’ in 2019 which I didn’t think was among his best work, but I would say that ‘Lessons’ is very much a return to form and genuinely engrossing. Many thanks to Vintage Books for sending me a review copy via NetGalley. Continue reading →