Enduring Love
(Libby/OverDrive eAudiobook)

McEwan's edgy tale of lives violently disrupted opens with a scene right out of a nightmare: a man and his grandson are ballooning across the English countryside when the wind abruptly gusts to dangerous speeds, the man is knocked out of the basket, and the boy-carrying balloon heads out over a cliff toward a stretch of power lines. Men run from all corners of the field to help, including McEwan's narrator, Joe, a very reasonable science writer madly in love with Clarissa, with whom he was enjoying a romantic little picnic. Joe and the others try to hold onto the ropes and ground the balloon, but all are forced to let go, except for one man who, as the others look on in shock, falls to his death. This literally out-of-the-blue tragedy turns out to be the catalyst for what becomes on all-out assault on Joe and Clarissa's relationship and peace of mind after Jed, one of the other would-be rescuers, becomes eerily obsessed with Joe. Jed is young, wealthy, solitary, and fixated on a God of his own creation. He tries to get Joe to pray with him, then calls in the middle of the night to tell Joe that he loves him. And so it begins: Jed stalks and threatens Joe; Joe tries in vain to convince others of the danger. McEwan, a master stylist, has the complex psychology of this extreme yet credible situation down pat, managing, too, to subtly transform the struggle between Joe and Jed into a life-or-death battle between reason and faith, rationality and madness. A clever, impeccable, and positively Hitchcockian psychological thriller. --Donna Seaman

The stunning beginning of McEwan's latest novel delivers a vivid visceral jolt: six men run across a verdant English field, each bent on rescuing a man dangling by a rope from a helium balloon while a small boy cowers in the basket, about to be swept away. One of the would-be rescuers will become a victim instead, falling to his death. But the tragedy is just the catalyst of what will be another one of McEwan's (The Child in Time) eerie stories of bizarre events and personal obsessions. As always, his work is imbued with a mounting sense of menace as the unthinkable intrudes into the everyday. Narrator Joe Rose is astonished, then repelled, then deeply frightened when one of the men, an unstable, delusional young man called Jed Parry, sees the incident as fated, a divine command to him to bring Joe to God. The tightly controlled narrative charts Joe's psychological disintegration as Jed stalks him with accelerating frenzy. Jed's mad demands feed into Joe's sense of guilt about his behavior during the fateful afternoon and his frustration with his career as a science writer. The ultimate casualty, after two more violent events occur, is Joe's relationship with his lover, Clarissa, a professor and expert on Keats. McEwan wrings wry meaning from the contrast of poetry and science, the limitations of rational logic and the delusive emotional temptations of faith. As he investigates the nature of obsessive love, McEwan takes some false steps in explaining Clarissa's misperceptions of Joe's behavior, somewhat lessening his story's credibility but not its powerful impact. Perhaps it is this lapse that persuaded the Booker judges not even to nominate the book, touted by the British press early on as a sure choice for winner. Whatever its limitations, however, the tightly controlled narrative, equally graced with intelligent speculation and dramatic momentum, will keep readers hooked. First serial to the New Yorker; author tour. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In the opening pages of McEwan's profoundly affecting new work, several men struggle to hold down a hot air balloon that threatens to break free, carrying a small child with it. One by one they let go, until one man is left hanging and is carried off to drop shortly to his death. For McEwan's narrator, Joe, one of the men struggling to hold down the balloon, this is only the beginning of the nightmare. Another would-be rescuer, a devout Christian who happens to be gay, conceives a passion for Joe and begins stalking him relentlessly, both to convert him and to draw him away from his beloved Clarissa. In the meantime, a mystery grows up around the dead man, a dedicated doctor and family man whose presence in the field that fateful day needs explaining. It's not surprising the McEwan, always good at creating a penetrating sense of unease (see Black Dogs, LJ 10/1/92), does more here to hold the reader in thrall than a Grisham or a Clancy‘and with more to say, especially about how small misalignments in the human psyche can wreak havoc. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/97.]‘Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A sad, chilling, precise exploration of deranged love, by the author of, among other works, the novels The Innocent (1990) and Black Dogs (1992). Joe Rose, a middle-aged science writer, takes his wife Clarissa to London's Hampstead Heath for a picnic--and stumbles into a tragedy when a man and his young grandson, on a jaunt by balloon, get into serious trouble. Joe is among the bystanders who race to seize the balloon, which is damaged, close to the ground, and being pushed by high winds toward a precipice. One of the rescuers dies. In the aftermath, Joe exchanges words with Jed Parry, a deeply disturbed young man among those who came rushing to help. Isolated, independently wealthy, Parry has attempted to suppress his homosexual inclinations by immersing himself in a fervent and very personal version of Christianity. Parry quickly fixates on Joe, and, deciding that he is meant to be the means by which Joe, a nonbeliever, will be brought back to God, Parry begins haunting him. He shadows Joe's movements around London, loiters outside his apartment, constantly leaves messages and letters. It's not only God's love that Parry believes he's carrying; he's also, in a confused and only partially conscious manner, convinced that Joe loves him and knows everything about him. Joe's increasingly angry attempts to rid himself of Parry seem to the obsessed man only another test of his devotion, while Joe and Clarissa's marriage begins to crumble under the strain, as do their careers. Finally, a desperate Parry decides he must get rid of Clarissa and, possibly, even Joe himself. In lesser hands, the story might be overwrought and unbelievable, but McEwan's terse, lucid prose and sure grasp of character give resonance to this superb anatomy of obsession and exploration of the mind under extreme circumstance. Painful and powerful work by one of England's best novelists. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

McEwan's edgy tale of lives violently disrupted opens with a scene right out of a nightmare: a man and his grandson are ballooning across the English countryside when the wind abruptly gusts to dangerous speeds, the man is knocked out of the basket, and the boy-carrying balloon heads out over a cliff toward a stretch of power lines. Men run from all corners of the field to help, including McEwan's narrator, Joe, a very reasonable science writer madly in love with Clarissa, with whom he was enjoying a romantic little picnic. Joe and the others try to hold onto the ropes and ground the balloon, but all are forced to let go, except for one man who, as the others look on in shock, falls to his death. This literally out-of-the-blue tragedy turns out to be the catalyst for what becomes on all-out assault on Joe and Clarissa's relationship and peace of mind after Jed, one of the other would-be rescuers, becomes eerily obsessed with Joe. Jed is young, wealthy, solitary, and fixated on a God of his own creation. He tries to get Joe to pray with him, then calls in the middle of the night to tell Joe that he loves him. And so it begins: Jed stalks and threatens Joe; Joe tries in vain to convince others of the danger. McEwan, a master stylist, has the complex psychology of this extreme yet credible situation down pat, managing, too, to subtly transform the struggle between Joe and Jed into a life-or-death battle between reason and faith, rationality and madness. A clever, impeccable, and positively Hitchcockian psychological thriller. ((Reviewed November 15, 1997)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

In this novel, touted as the often unnerving McEwan's most accessible yet, what starts out as a tragic accident during a hot-air balloon outing becomes a full-scale thriller. Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews

In the opening pages of McEwan's profoundly affecting new work, several men struggle to hold down a hot air balloon that threatens to break free, carrying a small child with it. One by one they let go, until one man is left hanging and is carried off to drop shortly to his death. For McEwan's narrator, Joe, one of the men struggling to hold down the balloon, this is only the beginning of the nightmare. Another would-be rescuer, a devout Christian who happens to be gay, conceives a passion for Joe and begins stalking him relentlessly, both to convert him and to draw him away from his beloved Clarissa. In the meantime, a mystery grows up around the dead man, a dedicated doctor and family man whose presence in the field that fateful day needs explaining. It's not surprising the McEwan, always good at creating a penetrating sense of unease (see Black Dogs, LJ 10/1/92), does more here to hold the reader in thrall than a Grisham or a Clancy and with more to say, especially about how small misalignments in the human psyche can wreak havoc. Highly recommended. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/97.] Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1998 Library Journal Reviews

After the calm of a pleasant afternoon picnic is punctured by a terrible accident a man falls to his death as a hot-air balloon floats away, carrying a child Joe Rose finds himself imbedded in the aftershock. One of several men who tried to hold down theballoon but eventually let go, he must reconcile his part in the tragedy with the threat posed by a stalker trying to save him through love. In turns obsessively morbid and cunningly funny, McEwan's deftly crafted prose holds the reader with the intensity of a thriller while engaging in a deep psychologicalexploration of shock, grief, the need for redemption, and, ultimately, the makeup of compassion and love. (LJ 10/15/98) Copyright 1999 Library Journal Reviews

The stunning beginning of McEwan's latest novel delivers a vivid visceral jolt: six men run across a verdant English field, each bent on rescuing a man dangling by a rope from a helium balloon while a small boy cowers in the basket, about to be swept away. One of the would-be rescuers will become a victim instead, falling to his death. But the tragedy is just the catalyst of what will be another one of McEwan's (The Child in Time) eerie stories of bizarre events and personal obsessions. As always, his work is imbued with a mounting sense of menace as the unthinkable intrudes into the everyday. Narrator Joe Rose is astonished, then repelled, then deeply frightened when one of the men, an unstable, delusional young man called Jed Parry, sees the incident as fated, a divine command to him to bring Joe to God. The tightly controlled narrative charts Joe's psychological disintegration as Jed stalks him with accelerating frenzy. Jed's mad demands feed into Joe's sense of guilt about his behavior during the fateful afternoon and his frustration with his career as a science writer. The ultimate casualty, after two more violent events occur, is Joe's relationship with his lover, Clarissa, a professor and expert on Keats. McEwan wrings wry meaning from the contrast of poetry and science, the limitations of rational logic and the delusive emotional temptations of faith. As he investigates the nature of obsessive love, McEwan takes some false steps in explaining Clarissa's misperceptions of Joe's behavior, somewhat lessening his story's credibility but not its powerful impact. Perhaps it is this lapse that persuaded the Booker judges not even to nominate the book, touted by the British press early on as a sure choice for winner. Whatever its limitations, however, the tightly controlled narrative, equally graced with intelligent speculation and dramatic momentum, will keep readers hooked. First serial to the New Yorker; author tour. (Feb.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews