McEwan Ian. On Chesil Beach

Published by Jonathan Cape 2007.
Booker Prize nomination and short-list 2007
A short novel of quite remarkable depth, power and poignancy by a writer at the height of his powers.A reader's reply:"There’s something creepy about this ha-ha-funny award that’s even creepier than Mr. Blackwell’s (or whatever his name was) annual Worst Dressed List. Is it merely an expression of the biological limits of literary style that this Bad Sex thing is usually given to male writers, or is some sort of thinly-veiled Puritanism at work? While admitting that some of the razzed passages have been awful indeed (Tom Wolfe’s still echoes), some were not at all, or were clearly intended as satire, and McEwan, whatever else his flaws are, can’t be bashed as an inept stylist.Maybe they should re-title the prize The Sex Is Bad Awards and tattoo big red A’s on the guilty writers’ writing hands. "