num_pages: 372
description: Atonement is Ian McEwan's ninth novel and his first since the Booker Prize-winning Amsterdam in 1998. But whereas Amsterdam was a slim, sleek piece, Atonement is a more sturdy, ambitious work, allowing McEwan more room to play, think and experiment. We meet 13-year-old Briony Tallis in the summer of 1935, as she attempts to stage a production of her new drama The Trials of Arabella to welcome home her elder, idolised brother Leon. But she soon discovers that her cousins, the glamorous Lola and the twin boys Jackson and Pierrot, aren't up to the task, and directorial ambitions are abandoned as more interesting preoccupations come onto the scene. The charlady's son Robbie Turner appears to be forcing Briony's sister Cecilia to strip in the Fountain and sends her obscene letters; Leon has brought home a dim chocolate magnate keen for a war to promote his new "Army Amo" bar; and upstairs Briony's migraine-stricken mother Emily keeps tabs on the house from her bed. Soon, secrets emerge that change the lives of everyone present...  The interwar upper-middle-class setting of the book's long, masterfully sustained opening section might recall Virginia Woolf or Henry Green, but as we move forward--eventually to the turn of the 21st century--the novel's central concerns emerge, and McEwan's voice becomes clear, even personal. For at heart, Atonement is about the pleasures, pains and dangers of writing, and perhaps even more, about the challenge of controlling what readers make of your writing. McEwan shouldn't have any doubts about readers of Atonement: this is a thoughtful, provocative and at times moving book that will have readers applauding.--Alan Stewart
language: English
title: Atonement
titlecomplete: Atonement
characters: Jackson Quincey, Emily Tallis, Pierrot Quincey, Briony Tallis, Robbie Turner, Cecilia Tallis, Paul Marshall, Lola Quincey, Leon Tallis
genres: Fiction, Historical, War, Romance, Literature, Classics, Novels, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 507731
places: England, France, United Kingdom, London, England
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: James Tait Black Memorial Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Whitbread Award
category: Novel, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: WH Smith Literary Award, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Los Angeles Times Book Prize
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Exclusive Books Boeke Prize, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Deutscher Buchpreis (German Book Prize)
category: Internationale Belletristik, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: Fiction, awardedAt: 1009872000000
name: Commonwealth Writers' Prize
category: Best Book in South Asia and Europe, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Premi Llibreter de narrativa, awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: Jonathan Cape