by Ian McEwan
First published 2025
A solitary researcher works through waterlogged archives in what remains of England after the floods. He seeks fragments of a poem that has disappeared from history. The deeper he digs into old records, the more he uncovers about the verse itself and the people who once knew it. Complex relationships emerge from the past. A violent act surfaces. Everything he believed about these distant figures crumbles. The poem holds secrets that force him to reconsider human nature itself. His quest becomes something larger than literary detective work. It becomes a meditation on courage, choice, and how easily life can break apart even when it seems most secure.
Genres: literary-criticism, literary-fiction, historical-fiction, mystery
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: literary-mystery, unreliable-narrator
Setting: England
Period: 2014, 2119
301 pages · Hardcover · Jonathan Cape