Black Dogs

From Publishers Weekly In this slim, provocative novel, McEwan ( The Innocent ) examines the conflict between intellect and feeling, as dramatized in one couple's troubled relationship. The narrator is fascinated by his wife's estranged parents, The lives of June and Bernard Tremaine, whose lives epitomize the tug-of-war between political engagement and a private search for ultimate meaning: their ideological and spiritual differences force them apart but never diminish their mutual love. The catalytic event in the Tremaines' lives occurs on their honeymoon in France in 1946. With the characteristic idealism of their generation, both had joined the Communist Party, but June is already becoming disenchanted with its claims. In an encounter with two huge, ferocious dogs--incarnations of the savagely irrational eruptions that recur throughout history--she has an insight that illumines for her the possibility of redemption. Liberally foreshadowed, --the bloodthirsty beasts are used as an overarching metaphor for the presence of evil in the world-- the actual episode with the dogs is not depicted until the book's final section, where its impact requires the reader to take a leap of faith similar to June's. For some this pivotal scene may not be fully convincing. Indeed, McEwan is rather too didactic in the exposition of his theme, so one may expect too much from the novel's dramatic main event. Yet the work is impressive; McEwan's meticulous prose, his shaping of his material to create suspense, and his adept use of specific settings--Poland's Majdanek concentration camp, Berlin during the dismantling of the Wall, a primitive area of the French countryside--produce a haunting fable about the fragility of civilization, always threatened by the cruelty latent in humankind. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Having lost his parents in an auto accident when he was eight years old, the narrator of McEwan's splendid new novel is fascinated with other people's parents--particularly his remarkable in-laws, indissolubly linked yet estranged and combative almost since their wedding. A man of reason who was once a Communist, Bernard Tremaine cannot understand why his wife, June, rejected political activism for spiritual quest after "an encounter with evil" in the form of two fierce black dogs. McEwan does not so much tell their story as the story of the son-in-law's efforts to understand them better by writing about them. Though Bernard and June represent diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world--two views beautifully and succinctly captured by McEwan--they are not mere vessels of thought but lively, distinctive characters in their own right. As the narrator returns to the French countryside where June fatefully encountered the dogs, the deceptively simple buildup makes her brush with violence all the more shocking. A novel of ideas with the hard edge of a thriller; highly recommended. -Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal" Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. Ian McEwan’s brooding and occasionally sinister novel hints at how personal relationships can be beset by demons unleashed in wider human conflict."Superbly evocative prose... The novel's vision of Europe is acute and alive, vivid in its moral complexities." - The New York Times Book ReviewJeremy, the narrator, delves into the history of his in-laws, June and Bernard, who fell in love during World War II, joined the Communist party and honeymooned in France. There, June left Bernard, who returned to London to continue his political activism. She remained, isolated in a farmhouse, contemplating her mystical encounter with God and evil during a period she refers to as her ‘Black Dogs’."As in McEwan's last novel, The Innocent (1990), the Berlin Wall plays an important symbolic role in this fictional meditation on evil—a pseudo-memoir written from a post-cold-war perspective... McEwan explores the personal consequences of political ideas in this remarkably precise little novel. His lapidary prose neatly disguises his search for transcendence." - Kirkus ReviewsIan McEwan his collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the 1975 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. He was also shortlisted, for his entire body of work, for The Man Booker International Prize 2005 and 2007. Black Dogs is a dark and brooding masterpiece from Booker-prize winning Sunday Times bestselling author Ian McEwan. In 1946, June and Bernard set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they had planned an idyllic holiday, but in France they witness an event that alters the course of their lives entirely. Forty years on, their son-in-law is trying to uncover the cause of their estrangement and is led back to this moment on honeymoon and an experience of such darkness it was to wrench the couple apart. 'Powerful... Unforgettable' Sunday Telegraph 'Thoughtful and compassionate' London Review of Books I judge it his best yet, which I should make clear is saying a great deal, -Observer In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever