The Cement Garden

Publisher and industry reviews

Jacket review

"Darkly impressive." -- "The Times"
"A superb achievement: his prose has instant, lucid beauty and his narrative voice has a perfect poise and certainty. His account of deprivation and survival is marvellously sure, and the imaginative alignment of his story is exactly right." -- Tom Paulin
"Marvellously creates the atmosphere of youngsters given that instant adulthood they all crave, where the ordinary takes on a mysterious glow and the extraordinary seems rather commonplace. It is difficult to fault the writing or the construction of this eerie fable." -- Sunday Times
"A shocking book, morbid, full of repellant imagery - and irresistibly readable...The effect achieved by McEwan's quiet, precise and sensuous touch is that of magic realism -- a transfiguration of the ordinary that has far stronger retinal and visceral impact than the flabby surrealism of so many experimental novels." -- "New York Review of Books
"
"His writing is exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing." -- "The Times
"
"The Maestro." -- "New Statesman
"
"McEwan has--a style and a vision of life of his own...No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him." -- John Fowles
"A sparkling and adventurous writer." -- Dennis Potter

UK Kirkus review

First published in 1978, this novel holds all the McEwan hallmarks: dark depravity, loss, childhood in an adult world and watertight characters with convincing emotions and motives. The story covers a few months in the life of Jack, one of four children in a dysfunctional family. The first signs of a this family's dark secrets are the sexual games the teenage siblings play with each other. The death of their father and not long afterwards their mother, bring them to darker deeds which echo the depravity of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Jack lives through these months in an agony of loneliness and confusion, not knowing how to communicate with his sisters or ask for help as manhood approaches. McEwan's brilliance lies in describing the slide towards depravity and shocking situations in such a way as to make them seem not only convincing, but inevitable. An accomplished tale of how adolescents can fail to grasp reality and respond appropriately. (Kirkus UK)

|

Add to wish list

|

Tell a friend