There are many new features in the latest novel by Ian McEwan, a writer who has earned the admiration of both readers and critics. The early branding around him has faded, and he has long stood as one of the most respected British novelists.
Lessons (Spanish and Catalan Anagrama) stands as one of his most ambitious works, notable for its generous autobiographical depth. Much of what happens to the protagonist, Roland Baines, feels drawn from life. McEwan, a pianist and journalist in his seventies, has faced a life filled with twists. The son of a military family who lived in Libya until age eleven, he grew up in a strict boarding school, endured unhappiness, and after a difficult separation, faced custody decisions around mid-life. He learned that his mother had entrusted him to a lover who became a second husband, while she herself was connected to the man who would die in the Normandy landings.
“I’ve been asked many times when I’m going to write my memoirs, and in a way this book serves that purpose, because so much of my family life is there,” McEwan explains via video conference from a country home two hours from London. He recalls a mother who placed an ad in a newspaper offering to give away a six-month-old baby, then handed him to families at a train station. It becomes a war story, revealing how many babies were born under unusual circumstances and how their true histories surface years later. The novel shows how historical events, especially wars, shape lives and uncover both joys and shadows. This is happening in Ukraine right now; the conflict has altered many childhoods. Unlike nonfiction, the novel allows a deeper dive into intimate emotions.
tough advice
Like his protagonist, McEwan found himself in a deeper seclusion while writing, avoiding travel, promotion, or literary festivals. He devoted ten hours a day, seven days a week, and began revisiting pivotal moments that taught lessons about loss and moments of fulfillment. The result is a novel that reads as a balance, a vital journey. “If you claim to have learned something at seventy-five, you risk sounding cliché when writing about it, and younger readers won’t find much value in my reflections. So the only way to approach this is to tell a life story, and that’s what I did. This novel is the only recommendation I can offer.”
The book centers on two key moments, both featuring women who defy traditional expectations. One concerns a twenty-five-year-old piano teacher who was abusive when Baynes was fourteen, and his first wife, a German woman who makes the difficult choice to leave after six years of marriage. The same life threads through to his own artistic development as a writer, an evolution that earned him lasting respect in his country.
Those two foundational traumas push the character’s life into the orbit of historic moments that leave their mark. From the Suez Crisis and the decline of British imperial influence to Brexit, the pandemic, or broader epidemics, and even the attack on the Capitol, the narrative ties personal memory to collective history. It prompts readers to reflect on how much control one has over life choices, and how much luck shapes outcomes. The book suggests that even in the social circles of youth, people are not the only ones who choose their friends.
McEwan also notes the tricky nature of memory. He observes that childhood moments can surface with a vividness that outlives many later recollections, and sometimes forgotten events resurfaced with new clarity. These recollections can deepen the fiction by adding chiaroscuro to the narrative, improving its texture and emotional resonance.
In the author’s most acclaimed novels, pivotal moments of desire drive characters forward. The same pattern recurs in Lessons, prompting reflection on how public debates around male desire have evolved in recent years. “Two or three years ago a young novelist told me he no longer dared to write about this subject, and I was shocked because it remains an important topic.”