![]() ![]() The story revolves around three men - the aforementioned newspaper editor, a composer and an MP - who are linked by one thing: they are ex-lovers of Molly, a photographer dead at the age of 46 from an unspecified illness. It’s like a game of chess - nothing is immediately obvious, but then a character makes a move and you see what he’s up to or how it might play out before it actually does, which makes it such a fun read. Occasionally it’s what the characters say that elicits a chuckle, but mostly it’s the clever connections and set-ups that McEwan puts into play that deliver the laughs. Though the humour is subtle, I tittered my way through it. But it’s also a terrific comedy about middle-aged men who will do almost anything to kick-start, or cling onto, stalled careers. The novel, which won the Booker Prize in 1998, is a searing tongue-in-cheek account of journalistic ethics before the internet took over. That’s because the lead character is a newspaper editor, who tries to revive a flagging career and a dive in circulation figures by publishing a series of photographs that could bring down a politician. Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam could easily have been included in my recent 10 books about journalists post. ![]() Fiction – paperback Vintage 198 pages 1998. ![]()
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