Ian McEwan_71

"No child, still less a foetus, has ever mastered the art of small talk, or would ever want to." Ian McEwan's 'Nutshell' is true crime narrated by a foetus with the voice of a middle-aged English don. So arch. No-one else but Ian McEwan could get away with it; it's painfully, immodestly, gleefully clever. But it is very, very clever indeed and you won't have read anything quite like it. 

The precocious narrator on identity politics: "Feeling is queen. Unless she identifies as king. I know. Sarcasm ill suits the unborn."