Virgins on a Honeymoon: A Review of Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

“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. But it is never easy.”

The opening hook to Ian McEwan’s latest novel On Chesil Beach is a delicious invitation into a world that time forgot. McEwan, the celebrated, literary Limey, whose previous works include such novels as Saturday, Atonement, and Enduring Love, has now focused his attention on two characters with such a rich and complex history, taking the reader back to time and place that we sometimes wonder existed at all.