If you thought a story narrated from the afterlife was innovative, get a load of this: Ian McEwan’s latest novel is told from the perspective of a third-trimester foetus in the throes of an existential crisis.
The precocious womb-dweller has overheard mummy and uncle plotting to send his cuckolded father to the grave before he’s even made it down the birth canal into a cradle.
A wine buff with a penchant for podcasts, our not-yet-born narrator is as clever as the author, who spins this gripping yarn in his usual sublime prose, sprinkled with the blackest of comic relief.
The in utero viewpoint sounds gimmicky, but it’s deftly handled by McEwan – in fact, at just shy of 200 pages, the only criticism one could level at this slender beauty is that it’s over all too soon.
