This novel is about a working woman and what happens to her when the meticulous order of her life is threatened. In the story, High Court judge Fiona Maye takes her job so seriously that she neglects other aspects of her life. She is childless although having been married for 35 years. When suddenly her husband Jack asks her permission to have a sexual relationship with another woman named Melanie, Fiona is shocked, dismayed, and humiliated.

At the heart of this novel, however, is Fiona’s work in the family court. Among the many cases she handles, the case of Adam Henry, a boy couple of months younger than eighteen, gains an utmost importance. The case’s news with the hospital’s petition for the intervention of the family court coincides with the time when Jack asks for Fiona's permission for an affair.

Fiona is scheduled to decide whether Adam should be forced to receive a blood transfusion for his leukemia, which is in its later stages. Adam’s parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses and do not believe in blood transfusions. It seems they and their church have brainwashed the very intelligent Adam as well. Fiona, after hearing all the evidence, decides to visit the boy and see for herself. She is impressed by Adam’s wisdom and his interest in the arts and poetry. Fiona and Adam connect at a very deep level. What happens to Adam or to Fiona and Jack constitutes the middle and the ending of the novel.

As a character, Fiona’s weakness lies in the importance she gives to the people who need her. Some may take her as caring too much, but I admired her for her work ethics, her industriousness, her wanting perfection in everything to the point that she neglected her own welfare and what was important to her, so much so that a very slight emotional misstep on her part shook her terribly.

I also loved the way the author twisted the plot and penetrated into Fiona's thoughts and feelings, while crafting a highly successful and literary piece of writing.

the characterization

is Ian McEwan,the bestselling author of fifteen books, including the novels Sweet Tooth; Solar, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize; On Chesil Beach; Saturday; Atonement, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and the W. H. Smith Literary Award; The Comfort of Strangers and Black Dogs, both short-listed for the Booker Prize; Amsterdam, winner of the Booker Prize; and The Child in Time, winner of the Whitbread Award; as well as the story collections First Love, Last Rites, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Between the Sheets.

It has a powerfully drawn central character, and its writing is superb with perfectly executed language and no words wasted. The story is on the heavy side; therefore, those who do not like what is literary may find it burdensome.

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Created Jan 27, 2015 at 6:00pm • Submit your own review...