num_pages: 193
description: On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane.  Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence.  Clive is Britain's most successful modern composer; Vernon is editor of the quality broadsheet The Judge .  Gorgeous, feisty Molly had had other lovers, too, notably Julian Garmony, foreign secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister.  In the days that follow Molly's funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact with consequences neither has foreseen.  Each will make a disastrous moral decision, their friendship will be tested to its limits, and Julian Garmony will be fighting for his political life.  In Amsterdam , a contemporary morality tale that is as profound as it is witty, we have Ian McEwan at his wisest and most wickedly disarming.  And why Amsterdam?  What happens there to Clive and Vernon is the most delicious climax of a novel brimming with surprises.
language: English
title: Amsterdam
titlecomplete: Amsterdam
characters: Clive Linley, Julian Garmony, Vernon Halliday, George Lane, Rose Garmony, Molly Lane
genres: British Literature, Adult Fiction, Novels, 20th Century, Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Audiobook
ratings_count: 52436
awards: awardedAt: 883641600000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 946713600000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: Nan A. Talese / Doubleday