In this irresistibly readable (New York Review of Books) tour de force of psychological unease the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement excavates the ruins of childhood and uncovers things that most adults have spent a lifetime forgetting--or denying. In the arid summer heat four children--Jack Julie Sue and Tom--find themselves abruptly orphaned. All the routines of childhood are cast aside as the children adapt to a now parentless world. Alone in the house together the children s lives twist into something unrecognizable as the outside begins to bear down on them. Don t miss Ian McEwan s new novel Lessons.