Product Description

As their holiday unfolds, Colin and Maria are locked into their own intimacy. They groom themselves meticulously, as though there waits someone who cares deeply about how they appear. Then, they meet a man with a disturbing story to tell and become drawn into a fantasy of violence and obsession.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5923 in Books
• Published on: 1998-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Review
"As the best young writer on this island, McEwan's evocations of feeling and place and his analysis of mood and relationship remain haunting and compelling."--"The Times"
"As always, McEwan manages his own idiom with remarkable grace and inventiveness; his characters are at home in their dreams, and so is he."--"Guardian"
"His writing is exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing."--"The Times"
"The Maestro."--"New Statesman"
"McEwan has--a style and a vision of life of his own...No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him."--John Fowles
"A sparkling and adventurous writer."--Dennis Potter
"Haunting and compelling." -"The Times"
"McEwan, that master of the taciturn macabre, so organizes his narrative that, without insisting anything, every turn and glimpse is another tightening of the noose. The evils of power and the power of evil are transmitted with a steely coolness, and in a prose that has a feline grace." -"Observer"

Guardian
'As always, McEwan manages his own idiom with remarkable grace and inventiveness...'

Listener
'Has you in its stranglehold from the first page to the last.'

Customer Reviews

Macabre but brilliant
`The Comfort of Strangers', McEwan's second novel was published at a time when this bright new talent was causing controversy and had been christened Ian Mcabre by critics shocked by the brutality of his themes and his fearless exploration of dark, previously taboo subjects such as incest, sadomasochism and child abduction. With its theme of unhealthy homoerotic obsession there are echoes of the later Enduring Love here. The story opens with a coldly voyeuristic intrusion into the lives of Colin and Mary, an English couple holidaying in an unnamed European city (assumed to be Venice) in an attempt to recapture the passion that has drained out of their relationship. When we join them they are distant from each other, not speaking and sleeping in separate beds. This gulf is apparent in the fact that even their dreams are at odds. Wandering the city in a torpor late one night they encounter Robert, a smooth talking, cruel and sinister local who seems to mesmerize them against their better instincts and takes them to a seedy bar nearby. Despite being unsettled by the encounter they are persuaded by Robert to visit his home the next day. Here they meet Caroline, his put-upon Canadian wife and quickly detect that something is seriously amiss. It soon becomes clear that the gap between these couples is not as wide as it initially appears. Without a doubt Colin and Mary are complicit in their own downfall and their desires, though previously unrealised, are as unwholesome as those of Robert and Caroline. One theme explored is the impact of fathers on children. Robert speaks of the admirable brutality of his father and Caroline, who defines herself only in relation to men, explains the subservience of her mother and herself to her diplomat father, a pattern repeated in their own relationship. The book is drenched in sexual menace and met with a mixed response on publication with one critic accusing McEwan of "squandering his extraordinary gifts". In summary, excellent, as is all McEwan's output.

Wonderfully written and shockingly haunting...
Being an Ian McEwan fan I couldn't wait to read this. It only took me one sitting and as always was very readable and totally engrossing - causing mounting fear and tension like only McEwan knows how to, with nothing in particular happening but an increasing sensation that something is about to (how does he do that?!). The book is set in Venice which adds to the calm mystique and general atmosphere of the story. The end was shocking - I felt quite sick after reading it. This is definitely one of McEwan's most twisted and chilling reads and I couldn't quite work out whether I had enjoyed it or not. Recommended although definitely not my favourite by the author.

Short, psychological and sinister
'The Comfort of Strangers' at 100 pages long is an excellent thriller. It starts off subtly with a couple holidaying in Venice but rapidly becomes dark, twisted and chilling. McEwan writes extremely well, capturing the mood and emotions of the characters perfectly and depicting the darker side of human nature. It is an excellent book to get into Ian McEwan with before tackling his more famous works like Enduring love and Atonement. Read in one sitting 'The Comfort of Strangers' will get your adrenalin running and scare you witless. Buy it and read it next time you have two or three hours to kill.