Saturday

Henry Perowne is a contented man - a succ essful neurosurgeon, the devoted husband of Rosalind, a newspaper lawy er, and proud father of two grown-up children, one a promising poet, t he other a talented blues musician. Unusually, he wakes before dawn, d rawn to the window of his bedroom and filled with a growing unease. Wh at troubles him as he looks out at the night sky is the state of the w orld - the impending war against Iraq, a gathering pessimism since 9/1 1, and a fear that his city, its openness and diversity, and his happy family life are under threat. Later, Perowne makes his way to his wee kly squash game through London streets filled with hundreds of thousan ds of anti-war protestors. A minor car accident brings him into a conf rontation with Baxter, a fidgety, aggressive, young man, on the edge o f violence. To Perowne's professional eye, there appears to be somethi ng profoundly wrong with him. Towards the end of a day rich in inciden t and filled with Perowne's celebrations of life's pleasures - music, food, love, the exhilarations of sport and the satisfactions of exacti ng work - his family gathers for a reunion. But with the sudden appear ance of Baxter, Perowne's earlier fears seem about to be realised. Ian McEwan's last novel, Atonement, was hailed as a masterpiece all over the world. Saturday shares its confident, graceful prose and its remar kable perceptiveness, but is perhaps even more dramatically compelling , showing how life can change in an instant, for better or for worse. It is the work of a writer at the very height of his powers.