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The Child in Time

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The Child in Time

By: Ian McEwan
Narrated by: Nathaniel Parker
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About this listen

 The Child in Time opens with a harrowing event. Stephen Lewis,a successful author of children's books, takes his three-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While waiting in line, his attention is distracted and his daughter is kidnapped. Just like that. From there, Lewis spirals into bereavement that has effects on his relationship with his wife, his psyche and time itself. Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction World Literature

Critic Reviews

Spooky...a wonderful novel
The Child in Time is an extraordinary achievement
It is marvellously written, moving, serious, readable... If you want to be appalled, refreshed, exhilarated, enlivened - read it
His masterpiece (Christopher Hitchens)
Artistically, morally, and politically, he excels
His best work to date
This book describes the panic of losing a child… The engulfing destructive pain is brilliantly explored (Alison Steadman)
The Child in Time is a dense, atmospheric book as much concerned with philosophical debate as with plot.
The Child in Time is an extraordinary achievement in which form and content, theory and practice, are so expertly and inseparably interwoven that the novel becomes an advertisement for, or proof of, its own thesis. (Sheila Macleod)
All stars
Most relevant
Such a joy. Ian McEwan is a favourite of mine however I was nervous of the storyline as not in the mood for a heavy story. How wrong could I be? The mix of stories is genius. Absolute genius.

Joy

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No end result of the missing child even the ending is left with answers. Going from one scene to next past to present aimless and confusing quite a depressing book

Aimless stumbling from character to character a disjointed storyline

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Although this begins with a crime, this is not a crime story. It’s about deep and dark grief. It’s also about how it is possible to somehow find a glimpse of hope for a way out of it. Ian McEwan has an amazing way with words and the narrator, Nathaniel Parker delivers them perfectly.

Beautifully written and narrated

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not sure what i just listened to. not at all my cup of tea.

what was that

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I could not get into this story. Very slow. Too deep and metaphorical. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen.

Drab

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