Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #259226 in Books
• Published on: 2001-11-27
• Released on: 2001-11-27
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: 7.83" h x .67" w x 5.16" l, .81 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 223 pages

From Amazon.com
The Child in Time opens with a harrowing event. Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, takes his 3-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: "It was a wonder there could be so much movement, so much purpose, all the time. He himself had none." This beautifully haunting book won a 1987 Whitbread Prize.

From Publishers Weekly
A sense of loss pervades this fine, provocative new novel by the author of The Comfort of Strangers. The protagonist, Stephen Lewis, a successful author of children's books, is introduced to us in a scene more frightening than any from a horror novel: while he is shopping with Kate, his three-year-old daughter, the child is kidnapped. Stephen's mounting terror as he combs the store for Katetrying in vain to recall the face of the dark-clad stranger he glimpsed behind themis palpable. As the story moves forward, it focuses not only on Stephen's search for his daughter, but also on his attempts to come to terms with his loss and the likely collapse of his marriage to Julie, a musician. Woven through the narrative is a subplot that deals with childhood and loss of a different sort. It is the innocence of youth that Stephen's friend and former editor, Charles Darke, longs for and ultimately recaptures at a terrible price. This is a beautifully rendered, very disturbing novel. First serial to Esquire.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
There are actually several childen in McEwan's new novel: Stephen Lewis's kidnapped daughter; the barefoot boy his friend Charles tries (with fatal results) to become; the hypothetical child under study by the Official Commission on Child Care, on one of whose subcommittees Stephen sits. And there are several fictional modes at work, ranging from a realistic account of wrenching personal loss to a satire on bureaucracy. Unfortunately these varying aspects undercut rather than reinforce one another, and the result is a muddle. English writer McEwan made his name with the scarifying stories in First Love, Last Rites ( LJ 6/15/75). Despite a happy ending, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that here he's working in an uncongenial genre. Grove Koger, Boise P.L., Id.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.