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    Enduring Love
    Enduring Love
    Enduring Love
    Audiobook9 hours

    Enduring Love

    Written by Ian McEwan

    Narrated by Steven Crossley

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    From the Booker Prize winner and bestselling author of Atonement—a brilliant and compassionate novel of love, faith, and suspense, and of how life can change in an instant.

    The calm, organized life of science writer Joe Rose is shattered when he sees a man die in a freak hot-air balloon accident. A stranger named Jed Parry joins Rose in helping to bring the balloon to safety, but unknown to Rose, something passes between Parry and himself on that
    day—something that gives birth to an obsession in Parry so powerful that it will test the limits of Rose’s beloved rationalism, threaten the love of his wife, Clarissa, and drive him to the brink of murder and madness.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateDec 16, 2003
    ISBN9781501992735
    Enduring Love
    Author

    Ian McEwan

    Ian McEwan (Aldershot, Reino Unido, 1948) se licenció en Literatura Inglesa en la Universidad de Sussex y es uno de los miembros más destacados de su muy brillante generación. En Anagrama se han publicado sus dos libros de relatos, Primer amor, últimos ritos (Premio Somerset Maugham) y Entre las sábanas, las novelas El placer del viajero, Niños en el tiempo (Premio Whitbread y Premio Fémina), El inocente, Los perros negros, Amor perdurable, Amsterdam (Premio Booker), Expiación (que ha obtenido, entre otros premios, el WH Smith Literary Award, el People’s Booker y el Commonwealth Eurasia), Sábado (Premio James Tait Black), En las nubes, Chesil Beach (National Book Award), Solar (Premio Wodehouse), Operación Dulce, La ley del menor, Cáscara de nuez, Máquinas como yo, La cucaracha y Lecciones y el breve ensayo El espacio de la imaginación. McEwan ha sido galardonado con el Premio Shakespeare. Foto © Maria Teresa Slanzi.

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    Reviews for Enduring Love

    3.5/5

    1,582 ratings51 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I think I've worked out what McEwan's "thing" might be. He writes very different stories, but in all of them you are left with a nagging sensation that there's something that's not been said, that there is more to this that you've been told. In Atonement, he did the whole rip the carpet out from under your feet in the last chapter trick. IN Amsterdam you're left wondering if there is a mastermind at work, pulling all the strings. In this, the seeds are planted mid way through that what Joe is saying might not be true, he might be seeing things, he might be the one with the mental instability. It's very clever, it's also rather unsettling. I think I'm going to space hos books out, too many at once could lead to increasing instability. In this, the story starts with an accident, where a group of disparate people come together to try and hold a hot air balloon on the ground after the pilot miscalculates. The various people arrive, take hold of the balloon's ropes but are unable to keep it under control and there is a dreadful accident. The incident is the point at which the two male characters are first brought together and one of them completely misinterprets what's taking place. The relationship that is formed is one sided and not at all healthy, but it does endure, as the second appendix makes clear. It's quite a sad book as there is the ending and a fruitless beginning wrapped up in this one story. Joe is presented as unreliable narrator, and even after the appendix, I'm still left with the nagging feeling that he's not been entirely honest, either with us or himself, about something. It's well done, but the religious mania element, while entirely relevant to the story, felt to have been laid on rather heavily at times. But then, I am speaking fomr an agnostic position, in the same way that Joe is from an atheistic one. I can understand his discomfort at what ensues, but I'm not sure he went about dealing with it in a logical manner, which is something he prided himself on. Hence my ambivalence about the truth of the matter. Hopefully that's danced around to many spoilers!
    • 4/5
      A story of how a horrible accident with a balloon brings two people together, and changes their lives.
      The book keeps you interested and wondering about the main character, and one of the people he meets during the balloon accident. I guess this book can be considered a psychological thriller and not a romance, as my first impression led to. I like the title as it can be taken a number of ways, and the story lives up to that. Lowered my rating because the ending seemed to fall flat.
    • 4/5
      This novel was in some ways quite disturbing. It starts with a horrific accident, and continues with a story of obsession and how both the accident and the obsession affect a happy couple. The beginning annoyed me, as the author uses the device of telling the reader that bad things happened, while continuing to take side excursions that delay the story. In that sense it reminded me of Fowles' Daniel Martin, which I also read this year.The writing itself is lovely, as is the evocation of a happy relationship, a lucky, wealthy life, and even the accident. But I was left with a feeling of unpleasant manipulation, and, as with the Fowles, a story that does not give equal time or depth to anyone but the narrator. This might be inevitable in a first-person narration, but in the end I was too distanced from the narrator, and everyone else.
    • 4/5
      The human mind is a wonderful and baffling thing. Its capabilities amazes even ourselves while its misfunctions and illnesses destroy our lives and sometimes the lives of others. This book digs deeply into the psychology of its characters, describing in vivid and earnest detail the functioning of a mind which has beheld a horrific event, the ecstasies of a mind in love, the despair of a mind confronting a lost love, and most significantly, the dangers created when a mind goes astray creating for itself a reality that cannot co-exist with the actual realities of our lives.
      I have always been partial to book where the psychology of the characters dominates the storyline of the book. The psychological insights found in so many novels by 19th and 20th century Russian novelists, the terrors wrought in the minds of characters created by Edgar Allan Poe, the tortures the mind endures from a character in love, the pain experienced when a person experiences tragedy and every other human emotion novelists explore as they tell their stories all offer depth and reality to the fictional accountings of the novels, these are the things I most enjoy finding in a book. "Enduring Love" is rich in explorations of the human mind. It demonstrates excellently that the novelist often understands people and the workings of their minds better than highly trained psychologists.
      This is a good book, a worthwhile read and a good example of what Faulkner meant when he said that all good literature "explores the human mind in conflict with itself."
    • 2/5
      Joe and Clarissa are picnicking when they hear cries from a hot air balloon that was descending nearby. The man controlling it had tried to get out, the rope had caught round his leg and it was rising again dragging him with it. A few men converge on the balloon, grabbing hold of the ropes hanging down to try to hold it down, but one by one they drop off. One man, John Logan, hangs on for as long as he can before he drops off at a height that can only be fatal. They rush to him to see if they can help, but it is too late.
       
      In this intense moment, the other man who got to the body at the same time asks him to pray about the situation, but Joe flatly refuses. Jed Parry though is a man possessed, he thinks that something has passed between him and Joe and in the moment that they shared that Joe has fallen deeply in love with him. He thinks nothing more of it and heads home but is slightly disturbed when he receives the first phone call from Parry at 2 am. From this moment Parry begins stalking Joe, writing letters to him, leaving countless messages on his answerphone and standing outside his flat. Joe is severely unnerved by it and Clarissa thinks he is losing his mind but the police aren't interested as he has done nothing wrong
       
      He meets with Parry briefly, but it only exacerbates the situation. Pushed to that absolute limit, Joe snaps and sets about taking matters into his own hands. Then he gets a phone call from Clarissa; Parry is with her and wants Joe to come home to talk.

      McEwan has written a book about those suffering from de Clerambault's syndrome a delusional disorder where an individual thinks that person is infatuated with him or her, thankfully it is rare, but as McEwan does in this book when coupled it with religious fervour, it has a deeply sinister edge. There is plenty of tension in the plot as Parry becomes more extreme in his actions to be with Joe. It is very creepy, as McEwan manages to convey just how disturbing stalking is for any victim of it. There are a couple of sub-plots that really didn't add much to the story either. However, there were several details that I couldn't get along with, in the book; I didn't quite understand as all these men ran to save the balloon with the child in, how they knew each other almost immediately, the balloon is described as a helium balloon later in the book too. Not bad, but could have been so much better.
    • 4/5
      A good book that uses a McGuffin to great effect.
    • 3/5
      Without a doubt, I regard the opening 60 pages as sublime,so evocative and precise. As with most of "McCabre's" novels, there is a falling off, a twitch away from focus and, sadly, the magic is gone.
    • 4/5
      A solid novel I will never read again.
    • 4/5
      A youngish married couple is picnicking near Oxford when they see a huge hot-air balloon being swept along the ground, a young boy in the basket and an older man on the ground twisted in the lines. The husband, Joe, and several other men in the park run towards the balloon, at first having success keeping it on the ground but finally being pulled up into the air in a strong gust of wind. All but one of them drops off as the balloon ascends with the boy still aboard and one rescuer dangling from a rope, hundreds of feet up. As the onlookers watch helplessly, the man loses his grip and plummets to the ground, and the balloon floats away. Joe and a second man, Jed, approach the body, and what they find is described in vivid and horrifying detail and, I'm sorry to say, will haunt me for many a day. Joe, from whose viewpoint the story is told, is wracked with guilt, convinced that if they had held on for a only few seconds longer the gust would have passed and no one injured. But a more serious situation arises as Jed becomes obsessed with him and begins to stalk him, convinced it's their destiny to be together and for Jed to bring Joe to his God. Here we arrive at the central problem with the plot: even while he tries to convince his wife of the seriousness of the stalker, Joe erases 30+ phone messages left by Jed instead of having her, or the police, listen to them. This seemed really implausible to me, and to the wife. Jed changes his tactics frequently so that the wife never sees him, and she begins to think her husband is imagining the situation. I found it interesting, and an indication of how good a writer McEwan is, that as a reader even I began to wonder if Joe was crazy. More and more isolated, Joe decides that only he can protect himself from Jed, and he takes a desperate step that brings the story to its climax.
    • 4/5
      One of McEwan's best. It had me hooked from the beginning, instead of taking time to work up to it. The story is completely original, slightly morbid, and beautifully written: true McEwan. [Don't bother watching the movie, though. It's not worth it.]
    • 4/5
      Joe Rose and his girlfriend are enjoying a lovely picnic in the park, when a elderly balloonist attempts to land his hot air balloon near them. The older man falls while getting out, leaving his grandchild alone in the balloon.Immediately a group of onlookers, including Joe, rush to secure the balloon. But they are unable to meet the task and the balloon with the child inside and one lone rescuer who was able to hang on, suddenly goes airbound in a fierce wind gust.Tragedy follows. While each of the rescuers question their role in the death, it's obvious from the beginning that one man, Jed Parry, whose mental health is already questionable, is completely undone by it.Jed becomes obsessed with Joe, follows him, lurks outside his home, sends passionate letters and phone messages and believes that Joe is not only in love with him, but that Joe is the one that initiated the affair.The police say they can't help Joe and Joe's girlfriend isn't even sure that Jed exists.It's an interesting look at obsession. According to [1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die], it also involves “rooting out meaning from chaos. Trust and doubt are also central”. p. 875I found this entertaining, but not groundbreaking and am rather puzzled why it is on the 1001 list.
    • 4/5
      One relationship grows and endures while another slowly disintegrates. Of course it is well written and the use of imagery was an aspect I really enjoyed. My first McEwan and I look forward to many more.
    • 5/5
      This book scared the bejesus out of me! I love a lot of what McEwan writes, and didn't know anything about this book before I started into it. I didn't even read the blurb on the cover, and I'm so glad I didn't as everything was a delicious surprise. It's the type of book where I don't think it's fair to even hint at what it's about. He makes it seem so real it's downright alarming.Suffice to say this is a fantastic psychological thriller, and I couldn't help but regularly marvel at how good the writing was. McEwan is fabulous at taking a small, fateful occurrence from a seemingly normal day and letting it snowball it into something positively heart-wrenching. He's the book equivalent of the movie 'Sliding Doors' - what if the character hadn't decided to go here that day, or what if they hadn't said those words at that time.I loved it. McEwan at his best, which is great as I felt a little bit lukewarm about Atonement. I loved The Cement Garden and On Chesil Beach.4.5 stars - Gripping, gripping, gripping. I dropped half a star as it got slightly far-fetched at one stage, but loved it nonetheless.
    • 3/5
      I now understand the love - hate relationship some readers have with McEwan's works. Yes, he is a master at capturing the personalities of obsession, compulsion, mania, etc. As much as I loved [Amsterdam], [Enduring Love] really came across to me as nothing more than a deep dive, self-absorbed navel gazing experience, even if it was a disturbing read. McEwan has a gift for capturing the minutiae of personal life but I kind of question why I require this level of detail to appreciate the subject of obsession and obsessive love. Yes, McEwan's details of Erotomania or de Clérambault's syndrome, is an interesting presentation and it works, but seemed like a bit of a slog to wade through the minor details just to comprehend the story arch and plot development. Just a little on the heavy detail / minutiae side. I am still not totally turned off from any further McEwan reading but I will be reserving the books I still need to read for when I am in the mood for the rather depressive topics McEwan writes about.
    • 4/5
      Although slightly outside my preferred genre range, I found this to be an excellent read. Having just recently finished "The Children Act" I was in the mood for more of McEwan's brilliant portrayal of relationships under tension - and I was not disappointed. After all, don't we each live with some amount of tension in our relationships, no matter how close and long-standing they are? Anything which sheds light on such situations is grist to my mill. Although the story has the shadow of a particular pathological condition hanging over it, I reckon there's a lot here that we can generalize to the broader realm. Next McEwan please!
    • 3/5
      Wellicht ben ik beïnvloed door de reviews die ik op deze site las, maar dit boekje doet inderdaad een beetje aan als een gefictionaliseerd psychologisch experiment, met personages die in een bepaalde framing zijn gezet en blind hun rol spelen. In dit geval heeft McEwan verschillende experimenten bij elkaar gevoegd: dat van een door een klinisch omschreven obsessie gestoorde kerel (Jed), dat van het koppel (Joe en Clarissa) waarin de man en de vrouw gevoelsmatig heel uiteenlopend in elkaar zitten en door een drama hun harmonisch bestaan uit elkaar zien spatten, dat van een volkomen rationeel ingestelde man (Joe) die geconfronteerd wordt met een ogenschijnlijk onzinnige bedreiging en daar uiteindelijk heel extreem op reageert, enzovoort. Heel die framing maakt dat het geheel erg kunstmatig overkomt, alsof de draadjes waaraan de poppetjes van McEwan hangen op de duur wel erg zichtbaar worden.Dit neemt niet weg dat dit boek absoluut de prijs verdient van één van de meest bloedstollende intro-hoofdstukken die ik ooit gelezen heb, qua compositie is dat hoofdstuk echt een meesterwerkje; en dat neemt ook niet weg dat er op geregelde tijdstippen erg interessante beschouwingen te lezen zijn over de psychologie van de personages. Maar het geheel overtuigt niet, en dat is spijtig.
    • 4/5
      Aangrijpend verhaal van het begin tot eind. Over wetenschapsjournalist Joe en Keats-onderzoeker en universitair docent Clarissa. Over hun verborgen emoties waartegen logica en ratio niet bestand zijn. Als het er op aan komt drijven Joe en Rose uit elkaar omdat ze op het moment dat het er echt toe doet, elkaar niet kunnen steunen in hun gevoel. Een ijzersterke passage: "no one could agree on anything. We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too. We saw and remembered in our own favour and we persuaded ourselves alont the way. Pitiless objectivity especially abour ourselves was always a doomed social strategy. We're descended from the indignant passionate tellers of half truths who in order to convince others simultaneously convinced ourselves. Over generations success has winnowed us out and with success came our defect, carved deep in the genes, like ruts in a cart-track when it didn't suit us we couldn't agree on what was in front of us. Believing is seeing" (...).
    • 4/5
      Fantastic beginning, impressive pace, great structure, strong, wonderful writing, interesting emotions and several more or less estranged characters. How easy it is to disturb thing, how readily a relationship gets off course, how fickle is life's substance. Or was a disaster inevitable to start with? Quote: Far back in some nasal cave, chance had fashioned out of mucus two-note panpipes, and we were forced to listen.
    • 5/5
      One of my all time favourites. A masterclass of writing and storytelling. What a great, imaginative story. Loved it. He even subtly wove in some witty in-joke references to the craft of writing (eg the crucible).
      [Not a spoiler, so fear not:]
      Interesting thing is that the film rendered a much improved climax. It obviated the need for the awkward and unnecessary earlier episode of obtaining a certain 'means of self-defence', which was the only (slight) flaw in the whole book.
      If I were McEwan, I'd have kicked myself silly at seeing the better film rendering of the climax.
      Still a brilliant, brilliant book, though, and I heartily recommend it.
    • 4/5
      Again, McEwan showed what a good writer he is. This is one is beautifully written. "Enduring Love" has a faster pace than "Atonement". However I prefer "Atonement" over this one. The story itself was okay but not exactly phenomenal. I felt that the characters was detached to the readers. I do love how McEwan has incorporated elements of science and John Keats life. McEwan is such a holistic writer. I might pick up more books written by him. I'm intrigued by his writing style and I feel and I will enjoy him immensely.
    • 2/5
      This is the third McEwan book that I've read and the third book that has left me feeling under-whelmed.I found the opening couple of chapters very good and had such high hopes for this book but in the end unlike the balloon it thereafter sank and failed to rise again which is a real shame as I felt that the germ of the story was a good one based as it is around the seemingly new phenomenon of stalking. My main problem with this book is the main character and narrator Joe Rose. No matter how hard I tried I just could not make myself like him, he seemed shallow, self-obsessed and seemingly always right. Even his love affair with Clarissa failed to ignite my interest. The book is not poorly written and I enjoyed McEwan's writing style but personally I felt that this would have been a far better novel if Clarissa and Jed Parry had added their voices to it, in so far as it would have helped to give Joe himself some added depth as well as really fleshing out the central ideas of love and obsession not to mention McEwan's usual hobby horses science and religion.Initially I was unsure whether or not to read the two Appendixes at the end of the book as I was unsure as to whether or not there was any real point to them but I must admit that they did finish the novel in a rather neat and interesting way. Which all in all seems a real shame, a high beginning and end but a sorry thump to ground in the middle. Just like the balloon really.
    • 3/5
      I really got into it for a while, but was disappointed by the ending - didn't seem worth the suspense!
    • 4/5
      Read this on the plane over to the States. Not as good as the other two McEwan's I've read, but still worth a look.
    • 4/5
      Everything I've read from McEwan's pen had that certain way of drawing universal themes from the circumstances of the characters. Here's one about guilt and attachment to it. It's suspenseful, the prose is marvelous and if I was a little let down at the end (it's no Atonement) it's all peachy.
    • 5/5
      Ian McEwan has an amazing capacity to write the moment and then build moment upon moment to a storied crescendo. The main character creates a word picture that might just as well be used to describe the author's writing, "Imagine the smallest possible bit of water that can exist." And later, "Now think of billions, trillions, of them, piled on top of each other in all directions, stretching almost to infinity. And now think of the river bed as a long shallow slide, like a winding muddy chute, that’s a hundred miles long stretching to the sea ..." It takes my breath away.I was flinching for so much of the story that I didn't hope for a outcome, with which I could rest. But Enduring Love shone through for so many of the characters. I can live with that.
    • 5/5
      I thin the more you read, the more you realise how little you have read and how much there is out there to discover. I have never read anything quite like Ian McEwans Enduring Love. Considered as a modern literary great, he proves that subtlety can be just as enthralling as the modern paunch-ant for fast paced drama. For those who enjoy the subtle interplay of words, the psychology of suspense and the cerebral intimacy of human relations, this book will be a revelation.Unlike the critics I do not see this as a conflict between science and religion. It is the consequences of obsession and its influence on the psychology of the main character Joe and through him the reader.Written in the first person we feel an intimate bond between the reader and the protagonist. Everything we see, hear and feel is from Joe's perspective. Dialogue is minimal as we concentrate on how events are affecting Joe, his relationship with Clarissa, his interactions with Jed Parry, the police and his own feelings about his work and career.It is interesting that Clarissa is the literature scholar and Joe the rational scientist. She specialises in the romantic poems of Keats, who extolled the love of nature and beauty. Yet throughout the book she is portrayed, as the logical, rational one, open to dialogue and understanding. Joe in contrast descends into guilt, fear, irrationality and paranoia when faced with Jed's obsession. When Jed first speaks to him, he adopts an over familiarity to which Joe reacts with hostility. Jed demonstrates his persistence when he asks Joe to pray with him at the scene of the accident and refuses to take no for an answer. The chapter ends with Jed ringing Joe at home and when Clarissa asks he dismisses it as a wrong number.When he thinks he sees Jed in the Library it is Clarissa he comes home to and reinforces his love for her. She is his rock, his normality. When he tells her about Jed's call she laughs, she assumes Joe is embarrassed by another man's affection. His first confrontation with Jed is by the phone box where Jed is quiet, shy, awkward, almost submissive. This makes Joe's reaction seem more unreasonable , aggressive and paranoid. He gives us Clarissa's point of view by telling us about an incident in the third person, revealing her frustration with him. Jed's viewpoint is given through the obsessive letters he writes to Joe.When he meets Jean Logan, the deceased widow, we learn something of the dead man's life and her suspicions that he was having an affair. There is a lot more dialogue between the characters in order to establish prior events. This becomes a mystery that Joe is charged to clear up. We are also given a clue to an obsessive condition which helps to explain Jed's fascination with Joe.When he suggests that Jed may have a psychotic condition she accuses him of trying to read his way out of things and it is him that has the problem. This changes the dynamic of their relationship and puts a degenerating distance between them. When he goes to the police they think he is mad as well and point out that no crime has been committed.The shooting in the restaurant makes Joe think Jed is trying to kill him. Clarissa asks him not to mention his previous thoughts to the police and just to give them a statement of what has happened. This incident causes Joe to take matters into his own hands and seek out a gun for his own protection. His ineptitude at obtaining this weapon shows how alien this kind of world is to him, but sets the scene for the books dramatic conclusion. The last chapter brings all the loose ends together, ending in a picnic and explanations. This is an author whose writing deserves further exploration.
    • 4/5
      Joe Rose and his wife, Clarissa, are settling down to enjoy their picnic lunch when they hear cries of distress and discover a hot air balloon with a young boy trapped in the gondola struggling to lift off as men strain on the tie-ropes to restrain it. In the attempt to save the child, a man falls to his death and at the scene a stranger named Jed Parry tries to get Joe to pray over the body, but joe will not.Thus begins the obsessive relationship, or “erotomania,” [aka de Clerambault’s syndrome] of Jed for Joe – the love that never dies because it’s born out of madness and unreasonable worship. It's a story of spiraling tension, violence, and terror that threatens to destroy the happy marriage of Joe and Clarissa.Written in prose that progresses in microscopic but charged moments, the reader must live each nuance of emotion and experience the reiteration of memory that heightens suspense and makes one feel like she is inhabited by Joe or inhabiting his fictional person. McEwan takes the common man and places him in a situation where he will have to behave in an extraordinary way to overcome horrific circumstance.Terrific read. Powerful, emotionally charged, horrible, wonderful, and utterly original.
    • 5/5
      I am glad that I have read other works by Ian McEwan before "Enduring Love" - my confidence/trust in the author got me through an early part of the book where I my only thought was "what?" (or WTF?). This novel turned out to be masterful - An unforgettable opening scene - an event etched into my memory as if I was there to witness it; a unique relationship between protagonist vs antagonist; scenes of grief and wounding; a crazy vindication of fact that shines a bright light on how to act in a trusting relationship (how to be absolutely right and mostly wrong at the same time). Really good book, but the reader has to be patient!
    • 2/5
      Amazingly, I LOVED other books by Ian McEwan, but was inexplicably irritated by the main character in this. The plot dragged on for me and I really didn't enjoy reading it. Unbelievable because I think "Atonement" is one of my favourit books of all time.
    • 4/5
      This novel opens with a bizarre accident in which five men, including our main character, Joe, rush to help a distressed balloonist. The attempt, alas, ends in tragedy. It also serves as the catalyst for a strange, disturbing obsession that one of the other would-be rescuers develops for Joe, which in turn threatens Joe's heretofore happy relationship.I really do love McEwan's writing. He has an incredibly keen grasp of human psychology, and especially the unreliability of human perception and memory, and at his best he makes most other fiction feel like a gross oversimplification of human complexity. Which, let's face it, it is. I'm also impressed by how scientifically literate his writing is. The main character here is a science writer with a PhD in physics, and McEwan gets him, and his scientific subject matter, absolutely right. This is a guy who thinks in well-chosen scientific metaphors, who often stops to analyze his experiences in terms of anthropology, neurology, or evolutionary psychology. He thinks, in other words, exactly the way I do, and I can't tell you how refreshing it is to see that done in a believable and nuanced way (as opposed to being presented with yet another clueless version of what most people think a smart, science-y guy is supposed to be like). It's particularly unexpected and wonderful in this kind of mainstream literary writing, where I don't often encounter characters I can identify that fully with, in all their good and bad points.My one complaint about this book, and the reason it didn't rate another extra half-star from me, is that the climax is a little unsatisfying, somehow, a little... anti-climactic. Although the book does at least end on a rather effective note. (A tip for the reader: don't skip the appendices. They are very much part of the story.)I should also add that I was a little trepidatious about the subject matter, because this kind of story could have very easily come across as unpleasantly homophobic, whether consciously or unconsciously, but thankfully it never does.