A jewel of a short story from the bestselling, award-winning author of Atonement—“My Purple Scented Novel”follows the perfect crime of literary betrayal, scrupulously wrought yet unscrupulously executed. Published to celebrate Ian McEwan’s 70th birthday.
“You will have heard of my friend the once celebrated novelist Jocelyn Tarbet, but I suspect his memory is beginning to fade. . . . You’d never heard of me, the once obscure novelist Parker Sparrow, until my name was publicly connected with his. To a knowing few, our names remain rigidly attached, like the two ends of a seesaw. His rise coincided with, though did not cause, my decline. . . . I don’t deny there was wrongdoing. I stole a life, and I don’t intend to give it back. You may treat these few pages as a confession.”
Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.
“No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan.” —The Washington Post Book World
“One of the most accomplished craftsmen of plot and prose.” —The New York Times Book Review
“McEwan is a literary pointillist—in control of each keystroke, creating small, precise masterpieces that delight with their linguistic prowess.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “There’s nothing McEwan can’t do.” —The Christian Science Monitor
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.
A jewel of a short story from the bestselling, award-winning author of Atonement—“My Purple Scented Novel”follows the perfect crime of literary betrayal, scrupulously wrought yet unscrupulously executed. Published to celebrate Ian McEwan’s 70th birthday.
“You will have heard of my friend the once celebrated novelist Jocelyn Tarbet, but I suspect his memory is beginning to fade. . . . You’d never heard of me, the once obscure novelist Parker Sparrow, until my name was publicly connected with his. To a knowing few, our names remain rigidly attached, like the two ends of a seesaw. His rise coincided with, though did not cause, my decline. . . . I don’t deny there was wrongdoing. I stole a life, and I don’t intend to give it back. You may treat these few pages as a confession.”
Don’t miss Ian McEwan’s new novel, Lessons.
Reviews
“No one now writing fiction in the English language surpasses Ian McEwan.” —The Washington Post Book World
“One of the most accomplished craftsmen of plot and prose.” —The New York Times Book Review
“McEwan is a literary pointillist—in control of each keystroke, creating small, precise masterpieces that delight with their linguistic prowess.” —O, The Oprah Magazine “There’s nothing McEwan can’t do.” —The Christian Science Monitor
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.
