The Children Act: Ian McEwan

"Fiona Maye is a leading High Court judge who presides over cases in the family court.  She is renowned for her fierce intelligence, exactitude, and sensitivity.  Bur her professional success belies private sorrow and domestic strife.  There is the lingering regret of her childlessness, and now her marriage of thirty years is in crisis.

"At the same time, she is called on to try an urgent case:  Adam, a beautiful seventeen-year-old boy, is refusing for religious reasons the medical treatment that could save his life, and his devout parents echo his wishes.  Time is running out.  Should the secular court overrule sincerely expressed faith?  In the course of reaching a decision, Fiona visits Adam in the hospital -- an encounter that stirs long-buried feelings in her and powerful new emotions in the boy.  Her judgement has momentous consequences for them both."

This is the second book I've read by Ian McEwan, Atonement being the first.  Though I read that book back in 2014, I still recall McEwan's lyrical, artistic style -- quintessential modern British literature (and Modern British Literature happened to be the course for which Atonement had been assigned); I knew the possibilities and depth into which I was about to dive with this book.  It's fairly short (there aren't even 250 pages in the hardcover printing), but the amount of emotion indecision McEwan was able to cram into a book of this length was astounding.  I expected to like it, but I didn't expect to find it so easy to read or so moving.

Fiona is a brilliant judge and some of the cases she hears are impossible.  I realize this is fiction, but I'm sure some of those situations do make appearances in real courts from time to time -- maybe even more often than we realize.  It's no wonder her marriage had become so strained.  If I was emotionally drained from reading about her life, I can only imagine what someone in her position would feel like, having lived it.  The strains upon her relationship and her husband's restlessness were written in a remarkably realistic fashion.  He wasn't crucified, but nor was Fiona.  I found myself wanting to hate him for what he did, but Fiona's vacillations muddied the waters brilliantly.

Adam felt alive.  I should have guessed the illness was leukemia from the cover art on the book, but I didn't.  Leukemia has touched my family in a very personal way.  I was not around to experience it first-hand, I found McEwan's descriptions revealing a side of the disease of which I was unaware.  It made me nauseous, but only for its powerful reality; his ability to describe the illness and the side effects of the treatments in a way that was (oddly) both clinical and moving at the same time.  Adam lives in an impossible world.  On the cusp of manhood, he clings to the life he has always known, but he really is still just a boy -- a talented, brilliant, remarkable, boy.  Leukemia turns his world on its ear and calls into question his core beliefs and that of his family.  Any decision Fiona makes will alter his life forever.  The eloquence and rationality with which Adam and his family explain and support their religious beliefs really makes this book readable.  I was worried that there would be screaming matches and religious soapboxes, but I can appreciate their points (even if I do not necessarily agree with them).  This was probably one of the greatest achievements in this book.

The ending of the book felt very true to what I know of McEwan's storytelling.  He gives rays of hope, but mixes them with healthy doses of poignant sadness.

Overall, I found the book to be a moving story very relevant to today's climate (I won't get into debates here, but a quick Google search should assuage your curiosity).  There were moments where I wasn't sure of some of the procedures and/or terminology (the law is different on this side of the pond), but I managed to figure them out.  The pacing was excellent and it flowed extremely well.  This was a very quick read that packed a powerful punch.