About this book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the best-selling author of Atonement and Saturday comes the epic and intimate story of one man's life across generations and historical upheavals. From the Suez Crisis to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Berlin Wall to the current pandemic, Roland Baines sometimes rides with the tide of history, but more often struggles against it. When the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has closed, eleven-year-old Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Two thousand miles from his mother's protective love, stranded at an unusual boarding school, his vulnerability attracts piano teacher Miss Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Now, when his wife vanishes, leaving him alone with his tiny son, Roland is forced to confront the reality of his restless existence. As the radiation from Chernobyl spreads across Europe, he begins a search for answers that looks deep into his family history and will last for the rest of his life. Haunted by lost opportunities, Roland seeks solace through every possible means—music, literature, friends, sex, politics, and, finally, love cut tragically short, then love ultimately redeemed. His journey raises important questions for us all. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without causing damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape our lives and our memories? And what can we really learn from the traumas of the past? Epic, mesmerizing, and deeply humane, Lessons is a chronicle for our times—a powerful meditation on history and humanity through the prism of one man's lifetime.
About Ian McEwan
Ian Russell McEwan (born 21 June 1948) is a British novelist and screenwriter. He began his career writing sparse, Gothic short stories. His first two novels, *The Cement Garden* (1978) and The *Comfort of Strangers* (1981), earned him the nickname "Ian Macabre". These were followed by three novels of some success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His 1997 novel *Enduring Love* was adapted into a film of the same name. He won the Booker Prize with *Amsterdam* (1998). He was awarded the 1999 Shakespeare Prize. His next novel, *Atonement* (2001), garnered acclaim and was adapted into an Oscar-winning film. He received the 2011 Jerusalem Prize. His later novels have included *The Children Act, Nutshell, Machines Like Me* and *What We Can Know.*
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