Virgin Summer

On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan, 2007

Chesil Beach and hotel chesil.jpg chesilhotel.jpg

A short novel in the style of Henry James describes the wedding night of two virgins in the very late Victorian year of 1962, just before the great sexual revolution of the mid 1960s. The groom is a west country village history major with a brain damaged mother and school teacher father. The bride is an Oxford born violinist music major just forming her own string quartet with a philosophy professor cold fish mother and a successful businessman father. Will they or won’t they consummate their marriage? A strangely readable anachronism.