Lessons by Ian McEwan

While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade.

Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history.

From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the Covid pandemic and climate change, Roland sometimes rides with the tide of history but more often struggles against it. Haunted by lost opportunities, he seeks solace through every possible means -- literature, travel, friendship, drugs, politics, sex and love.

“This was how to steer a life successfully, Roland thought. Make a choice, act! That’s the lesson. A shame not to have known the trick long ago. Good decisions came less through rational calculation, more from sudden good moods.”

The latest novel from Ian McEwan does not disappoint. A story spanning one man’s life, his choices and chances, as some of the key events and moments in modern history play out. A story of love, restlessness and regret. It’s a deeply human novel. Great characters. Great writing.

4 stars. Recommended.

Published in 2022. 496 pages.