Saturday by Ian McEwan
Published by Jonathan Cape in 2005

Saturday is a novel set within a single day - 15 February 2003 – the day on which thousands of peace-protesters invaded London to march against the war in Iraq.

Henry Perowne is a contented man - a successful neurosurgeon, happily married to a newspaper lawyer, and proud father of two grown-up children. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, drawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. What troubles him is the state of the world - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/11, and a fear that his city, its openness and diversity, and his happy family life are under threat. Later, as Perowne makes his way to his usual squash game through London streets filled with anti-war protestors, a minor accident in his car brings him into a confrontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive young man, on the edge of violence. To Perowne's professional eye, something appears to be profoundly wrong with this young man.

Towards the end of a day rich in incident and filled with Perowne’s celebrations of life’s pleasures, his family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appearance of Baxter, Perowne’s earlier fears seem about to be realized.

As in his previous novels, McEwan shows us once again how life can change in an instant, for better or for worse.

‘McEwan has found in Saturday the right form to showcase his dazzling talents’
Caroline Moore The Telegraph
‘The distinctive achievement of McEwan's work has been to marry literary seriousness and ambition with a pace and momentum more commonly associated with genre fiction’
Zoe Heller New York Times
‘It's the good writing and the truthful and convincing way of rendering consciousness that makes Ian McEwan's Saturday so engrossing, keeping me awake like a mystery thriller’
Colm Toibin The Sunday Times
‘Says more about the way we live now than assorted navel-gazing posturings from that dubious summit called High Art’
Douglas Kennedy Irish Times

Ian McEwan was born in Aldershot, England and currently lives in London. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction three times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998.

By the same author
Amsterdam
Atonement
Black Dogs
The Cement Garden
The Child in Time
The Comfort of Strangers
The Daydreamer
Enduring Love

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