Amsterdam - by Ian McEwan (Paperback)

About the Book

The wickedly comic Booker Prize winner. On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to the woman who had been a lover to both of them. In the days that follow the funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact that will have consequences that neither man could have foreseen.

Book Synopsis

BOOKER PRIZE WINNER - NATIONAL BESTSELLER - A sharp contemporary morality tale, cleverly disguised as a comic novel, Amsterdam is "a dark tour de force, perfectly fashioned" (The New York Times) from the bestselling author of Atonement.

On a chilly February day, two old friends meet in the throng outside a London crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly's lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence: Clive is Britain's most successful modern composer, and Vernon is a newspaper editor. Gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers, too, notably Julian Garmony, Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger tipped to be the next prime minister. In the days that follow Molly's funeral, Clive and Vernon will make a pact with consequences that neither could have foreseen...

Review Quotes

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

"A dark tour de force, perfectly fashioned." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A well-oiled machine.... Ruthless and amusing." --The New York Times Book Review

"Beautifully spare prose, wicked observation, and dark comic brio." --The Boston Globe

"At once far-reaching and tightly self-contained, a fin de siécle phantasmagoria." --New York

"Ian McEwan has proven himself to be one of Britain's most distinct voices and one of its most versatile talents.... Chilling and darkly comic." --Chicago Tribune

"By far his best work to date ... an energizing tightrope between feeling and lack of feeling, between humanity's capacity to support and save and its equally ubiquitous penchant for detachment and cruelty." --The San Diego Union-Tribune

"You won't find a more enjoyable novel ... masterfully wrought, sure to delight a reader with even half a sense of humor." --The Atlant Journal-Constitution

"McEwan writes the sort of witty repartee and scathing retort we wished we thought of in the heat of battle. On a broader scale, McEwan's portrayal of the mutually parasitic relationship between politicians and journalists is as damning as it is comic." --The Christian Science Monitor

About the Author

IAN MCEWAN is the critically acclaimed author of seventeen novels and two short story collections. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His novels include The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Cement Garden; Enduring Love; Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize; Atonement; Saturday; On Chesil Beach; Solar; Sweet Tooth; The Children Act; Nutshell; and Machines Like Me, which was a number-one bestseller. Atonement, Enduring Love, The Children Act and On Chesil Beach have all been adapted for the big screen.