false 2501004 160148 9953 0385522401 9780385522403 290 http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181918900m/9953.jpg http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1181918900s/9953.jpg http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9953.On_Chesil_Beach 3.51 1082
It is July 1962. Florence is a talented musician who dreams of a career on the concert stage and of the perfect life she will create with Edward, an earnest young history student at University College of London, who unexpectedly wooed and won her heart. Newly married that morning, both virgins, Edward and Florence arrive at a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their worries about the wedding night to come. Edward, eager for rapture, frets over Florence's response to his advances and nurses a private fear of failure, while Florence's anxieties run deeper: she is overcome by sheer disgust at the idea of physical contact, but dreads disappointing her husband when they finally lie down together in the honeymoon suite.

Ian McEwan has caught with understanding and compassion the innocence of Edward and Florence at a time when marriage was presumed to be the outward sign of maturity and independence. On Chesil Beach is another masterwork from McEwan — a story of lives transformed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.]]> 2408 3.61 79074 12161 2007 4 7 false Thu Jun 28 13:59:36 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 30 12:21:44 -0700 2007 more...]]>