Provides a thorough overview of Ian McEwan's fiction, articulating his place in the canon of contemporary fiction.

Chronology; Introduction Dominic Head; 1. 'Shock lit': the early fiction Eluned Summers-Bremner; 2. Moral dilemmas Lynn Wells; 3. Science and climate crisis Astrid Bracke; 4. The novel of ideas Michael Lemahieu; 5. Cold War fictions Richard Brown; 6. The construction of childhood Peter Childs; 7. The public and the private David Malcolm; 8. Masculinities Ben Knights; 9. The novellas Dominic Head; 10. Realist legacies Judith Seaboyer; 11. Limited modernism Thom Dancer; 12. Narrative artifice David James; Further reading.