num_pages: 166
description: A novel of remarkable depth and poignancy from one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence’s response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence’s anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite. Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan—a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.
language: English
title: On Chesil Beach
titlecomplete: On Chesil Beach
characters: Edward Mayhew, Florence Ponting
genres: Fiction, Historical, British Literature, Romance, Literature, Adult, Novels, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction
ratings_count: 91101
places: England, Chesil Beach, Dorset, England, Dorset, England, United Kingdom
awards: awardedAt: 1167638400000
name: Booker Prize, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: British Book Award, awardedAt: 1199174400000
name: Prix Littéraire Européen - Madeleine Zepter, awardedAt: 1230796800000
name: Dublin Literary Award
publisher: Jonathan Cape