Book description
Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a
brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and
finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services. The year is
1972. Britain, confronting economic disaster, is being torn apart by
industrial unrest and terrorism and faces its fifth state of
emergency. The Cold War has entered a moribund phase, but the fight
goes on, especially in the cultural sphere.
Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent on a 'secret mission'
which brings her into the literary world of Tom Haley, a promising
young writer. First she loves his stories, then she begins to love the
man. Can she maintain the fiction of her undercover life? And who is
inventing whom? To answer these questions, Serena must abandon the
first rule of espionage - trust no one.
McEwan's mastery dazzles us in this superbly deft and witty story of
betrayal and intrigue, love, and the invented self.
Ian McEwan is the author of two collections of stories and twelve
previous novels, including
Enduring Love
,
Amsterdam
, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1998,
Atonement
and, most recently,
Solar.
