a book
Atonement
Ian McEwan · 2007 · 351 pages
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A symphonic novel of love and war, childhood and class, guilt and forgiveness that provides all the satisfaction of a brilliant narrative and the provocation we have come to expect from the acclaimed Booker Prize–winning, internationally bestselling author.
One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
“A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama.” —John Updike, The New Yorker
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.
As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.
One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century • A Kirkus Reviews Best Fiction Book of the Century
“A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama.” —John Updike, The New Yorker
On a hot summer day in 1935, thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis witnesses a moment’s flirtation between her older sister, Cecilia, and Robbie Turner, the son of a servant and Cecilia’s childhood friend. But Briony’s incomplete grasp of adult motives—together with her precocious literary gifts—brings about a crime that will change all their lives.
As it follows that crime’s repercussions through the chaos and carnage of World War II and into the close of the twentieth century, Atonement engages the reader on every conceivable level, with an ease and authority that mark it as a genuine masterpiece.
recommended by 4 people
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Lionel Shriver
“Thirteen-year-old Briony sees her elder sister being raped by the talented housekeeper’s son; except she has misunderstood what she has seen. He is ruined. Ian McEwan assumes the point of view of a child in a way that isn’t nauseatingly sweet, and he doesn’t endorse cheap forgiveness. This book demonstrates that seemingly small sins can have enormous and permanently dire consequences. He offers his protagonist no expiation. Sometimes with guilt you just have to live with it.”↗
Sarah Paulson
“This novel follows the lives of the Tallis family in England from 1935 to 1999. The three main characters are Briony, a 13-year-old with envy in her heart; her sister, Cecilia; and Robbie, the son of the estate’s housekeeper. We see the innocence and beauty of young love corrupted by a single lie—and how those three lives are forever changed. It’s a story of forgiveness and absolution, and of how much our own hunger for love can color our morality.”↗
