I like McEwan for his dark, disturbing side.I loved Comfort of Strangers and the Cement Garden has that same hopeless feel but seethes with decaying corpses, unwashed bodies, teen hormones and a central, fabulous metaphor. It was totally brilliant. And better than the movie, which I saw some years ago.

I got to the crazy incest sex part while on a train from NY to Chicago. We stopped in Elkhart and an enormous Mennonite woman sat down next to me. She gently reprimanded her polite brood of 7-9 year olds for what could have only been kicking their feet in the air too gleefully.

"Wow, I hope she doesnt look at what I am reading" I thought as she shifted her fat arms to get a better grip on her prayer book. Who knows how well Mennonites read English.... I almost felt like I was in the seventh grade again, devouring a lurid Harlequin Temptation and trying to block out the never- ending mormon church service.