First Love, Last Rites (Picador Books) - Softcover

Ian McEwan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330248308 ISBN 13: 9780330248303

Publisher: Picador, 1976

Synopsis

This is a collection of short stories which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976. The awakening sensations of first love and its ritual initiations are the main topics of the short stories contained in this book.

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

Ian McEwan's Somerset Maugham Award-winning collection First Love, Last Rites brought him instant recognition as one of the most influential voices writing in England today. Taut, brooding, and densely atmospheric, these stories show us the ways in which murder can arise out of boredom, perversity can result from adolescent curiosity, and sheer evil might be the solution to unbearable loneliness. These tales are as horrifying as anything written by Clive Barker or Stephen King, but they are crafted with a lyricism and intensity that compel us to confront our secret kinship with the horrifying.

From the Back Cover:

"McEwan [has] a powerful talent that is both weird and wonderful." --Boston Sunday Globe

"Ian McEwan's fictional world combin[es] the bleak, dreamlike quality of de Chirico's city-scapes with the strange eroticism of canvases by Balthus. Menace lies crouched between the lines of his neat, angular prose, and weird, grisly things occur in his books with nearly casual aplomb." --The New York Times

"McEwan is a splendid magician of fear." --Village Voice Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador
• Publication date: 1976
• ISBN 10: 0330248308
• ISBN 13: 9780330248303
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 125