Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She’s still in the marital home — a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse — but not with John. Instead, she’s with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy’s womb..
Nutshell is a dark comedy, a Hamlet-story narrated by an unborn baby yet to avenge his father.
Our womb-based narrator is smart, witty and oddly worldly. He has learned by listening to his mother’s radio programs and conversations; he doesn’t hold back sharing his views on the state of society at large.
In the middle of a long, quiet night I might give my mother a sharp kick. She’ll wake, become insomniac, reach for the radio. Cruel sport, I know, but we are both better informed by the morning.
I’m a big Ian McEwan fan and I’m also pregnant so I found this story particularly amusing. Nutshell is definitely a book to liven up the usual list of stale pregnancy reads!
However close you get to others, you can never get inside them, even when you’re inside them.
READ NOW: Nutshell
MY RATING: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
PUBLISHED: 2016
GENRE: Literary
PAGES: 199