Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach

I've been a fan of British author Ian McEwan from the beginning (owning prized first editions of, among others, his debut novel The Cement Garden and second short story collection In Between the Sheets, both published in the U.S. in 1978). In the 30 years since McEwan emerged on the literary scene, his writing style has steadily matured (particularly from 1992's Black Dogs forward); today, he's considered one of the finest writers in the English language, and his last four books—Amsterdam, Atonement, Saturday, and this year's On Chesil Beach—have achieved both critical and commercial success. Ian McEwan: On Chesil Beach, the maiden entry in the “Out of the Book” documentary profile series produced by legendary Portland bookstore Powell Books, expands on the traditional author reading, with interviews of McEwan, author Colum McCann, editor Nan Talese, various critics, and booksellers, as well as dramatic recreations and on-location footage. The opening sentence of On Chesil Beach captures the characters, period, and overarching theme of the novel perfectly: “They were young, educated, and both virgins on this, their wedding night, and they lived in a time when a conversation about sexual difficulties was plainly impossible.” That time is 1962—technically in the 1960s, but worlds removed from what we think of as The Sixties—and the two protagonists (reserved and refined string quartet member Florence and working class R&B-loving Edward) are about to experience one of the most disastrous marriage consummations in all of English literature. Filmmaker Doug Biro's half-hour profile suffers a bit from MTV-influenced hyper-editing (with peek-a-boo impressionistic scenes from the book and shots of the titular beach), but this is an otherwise solid reading/interview/discussion that will surely appeal to both fans of McEwan and book groups (and stick around after the credits for a humorous look at McEwan's run-in with the law for pocketing a handful of pebbles from Chesil Beach). Recommended. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)