Come and chat to Ian McEwan about his exceptional career and acclaimed novels, including his latest, The Children Act on MONDAY 1 JUNE, 9-10pm

[TillyMumsnetBookClub]

Our May author Ian McEwan is one of Britain's most outstanding, successful and acclaimed novelists, winning multiple awards over his long career. His subtle, unshowy and precise style is perfectly suited to his meticulously researched subjects - from brain surgery in Saturday to MI5 in Sweet Tooth.

In his pacy, gripping new novel, The Children Act, McEwan deftly investigates the legal system through his protagonist Fiona Maye, a High Court judge. When her husband Jack asks for her permission to have an affair, Fiona buries herself in her work in the family courts as a counterbalance to her crumbling personal life. But when an emergency case involving a young Jehovah's Witness boy comes up, Fiona's emotional involvement with him leads to disturbance but also self-knowledge, across both her public and private life.

You can find out more on our book of the month page, and find information covering McEwan's stellar career on his website.

Vintage have 50 copies of THE CHILDREN ACT to give to Mumsnetters: to claim your copy please go to the book of the month page. If you're not lucky enough to bag one of those, you can always get a Kindle version here or paperback here.

We are absolutely thrilled and honoured that Ian will be joining us on Monday 1st June, 9-10pm to discuss THE CHILDREN ACT, his writing life, his many award-winning novels plus much more. Please feel free to discuss the book here throughout the month and then come and meet Ian on the night, ask him a question about any of his novels or simply tell him what you thought of his latest book. Look forward to seeing you on the 1st.

Just saying 'hi' from Mumsnet Merton & Wimbledon Book Group - we're delighted to be reading this ( for our copies) and we're also reading On Chesil Beach to give us broader perspective on Ian's more recent fiction.

Thanks for the copy! I am reading the book at the moment.

Big thank you for my copy. Starting it today and looking forward to the webchat.

Thanks so much for a copy of this book. I finally had some free time at the weekend to get round to reading it and it was a page turner.

I'd love to know where the I aspiration for the story line came from. We hear about courts making orders on cases where parents are at loggerheads either with each other or with the medical system itself and I wonder if there was one particular case that inspired this or whether the dilemma became the main storyline amongst the other cases mentioned in the plot?

Thanks so much for my copy of this book. I was just glad it was quite short as I became so involved in it, I couldn't put it down and spent the weekend with my nose buried firmly inside the pages.

I found the subject of the main case interesting and was also intrigued by the other cases mentioned. I was also wondering about the inspiration for this book. Did it come from a real case?

Unfortunately I won't be able to make the Webchat but will catch up later.

I have experienced the Family Court first hand, and felt that they dealt with our case in a fair and respectful manner, despite what they must have secretly thought about our situation. I say they, as we saw about five judges by the end of the process.

After my divorce I studied family law and fully understand the reasoning behind their decisions. I guess I was fascinated to know what a judge
really thinks rather than their official take on the matter.

I would like to ask how Ian McEwan can put himself in the mind set of a woman? How did he carry out his research for this book?

Thanks for my copy - have read and enjoyed and look forward to posting some questions.

Thank you for my copy. I have just finished it but will avoid posting just now to give others a chance to finish.

Wonderful to see so many posts and questions here already. I'm looking forward to this chat immensely.

Just a reminder that if you can't make the chat on the night, do put your question up here beforehand.

Hope to see you all on Monday 1st...

I hope to join the chat on the day, but just in case I can't, I'm posting my comments and question now:

I was immediately drawn in to the story of The Children Act by the writing of the opening scenes. The description of the main protagonist engaged with a legal case while sitting in her study sets the scene of the conflict between her apparent professional success and the problems in her home life. I won’t describe the way in which the moral dilemma of a Family Court case is played out, but for me this is one of the most memorable of the many books I’ve read by the Ian McEwan. I especially enjoyed the way in which he uses the setting of Gray’s Inn Road. A handful of streets in a single area of London is portrayed as a distinctive - even unique - world set apart from the bustling city around it. Given the legal setting, the contrast between the cloistered Inns of Court and the prosaic streets nearby, helps focus the reader’s mind on the story. The urban scene-setting reminded me of my favourite McEwan book, Saturday, in which Fitzrovia forms an essential backdrop to the unfolding story.

My question to Mr McEwan is: to what extent does the choice of the urban setting of his books come at the start of the writing?

Not sure whether I'll make the chat, so posting ahead of time in case I don't. Thank you for the opportunity to read something I wouldn't have otherwise (confession - I read On Chesil Beach and hated it so haven't picked up any McEwan since) - I thoroughly enjoyed it. One irritation for the publisher if they're reading: telling me it's 'heartbreaking' on the front cover so I'll see it every time I pick it up was maddening - I was anticipating the 'heartbreak' and therefore guessed what was coming which kind of ruined the suspense.

Anyway, my question is to what extent McEwan felt constrained by the realities of the legal system, and to what extent he felt able to apply artistic license. I have no involvement in the legal system but was pretty sure I recognised the Siamese twins case (albeit with some details changed) as a real one - were they all?

Most books try to draw you in and somehow involve the reader in the story. With your book I felt very detached as a reader, almost as if I was presented with several different "stagings". Was that effect intended?

I read this a few months ago for our book group. I'm a big fan of Ian McEwans writing, some of his sentences are so beautifully written (sorry to sound such an arse). However I am starting to find with his later books that are more "issue" focused that he's turning into a bit of a middle brow Jodi Picoult.

It seems such a risk for books with a 'contemporary dilemma' at heart.

I loved On Chesil Beach StickChild (although I get why it divides people so much). I loved that awful frustration for the reader. It was such a beautiful description of people relating in a way that would just never happen any more.

Anyway, really looking forward to reading the webchat - am in Australia so unlikely to be able to get to it live.

StickChild: I seem to remember reading that all the cases cited in the book are real cases, though I'm sure Ian McEwan will give you a definite answer in the web chat.

This is an interesting article he wrote about the law and religion at the time the book was published:

www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/05/ian-mcewan-law-versus-religious-belief

I've read almost all of Ian McEwan's books, and my feeling about this one was that I enjoyed the legal arguments more than the story. I do love a good, difficult legal case. I wasn't entirely convinced by the characters, though.

I agree. His female characters, particularly the professional ones are often quite unsympathetic; hard even. Is that intentional?

Hope to be here in time for the web chat but in case I miss it here are my comments/questions
Fiona has been very single minded in her career choice and therefore chosen not to become a mother. This is a decision men do not make - presumably this is why the main character is a woman. I think it is difficult for a male author to write authentically about how women feel. Are there other reasons you have chosen to do this?
Judges spend alot of time considering their cases with objectivity. Once they have made and justified their decisions I would assume they feel they have done their job and move on to the next case. How often do you believe they revisit their decision or question their judgment or even follow up on the consequences?
Many of us have been touched by what we see as unnecessary deaths of Jehovah Witness believers. Was this book prompted by a personal experience of this kind?

Apologies to Ian McEwan for these slightly negative questions - I have loved so many of your books, but two things really niggle away at me:

1. Most of your books feature highly educated, intelligent, professionally successful characters (often with a very deep knowledge and love of music). Have you ever thought of challenging yourself by creating protagonists who are a bit more ordinary?

1. Why-oh-why do you torment your readers with such frustrating endings? I adored Sweet Tooth all the way through, but I was so cross at the ending that I wanted to throw the book against the wall (but couldn't, because I was reading it on a Kindle). Couldn't you write a book where the ending is neither tricksy nor depressing?

I've just read this book. Have always felt his writing a good influence on me. Blooming hope I can make the web chat.

@TillyMumsnetBookClub

Wonderful to see so many posts and questions here already. I'm looking forward to this chat immensely.

Just a reminder that if you can't make the chat on the night, do put your question up here beforehand.

Hope to see you all on Monday 1st...

This is Ian McEwan. I'm looking forward to our chat tomorrow.

Very honoured to be able to take part in this webchat with Ian McEwan.

I agree so much with the previous poster who commented on the wonderful portrayal of the tiny London community in Gray's Inn.

Do you feel at all that you were punishing Fiona for her career success and for her glittering, enviable life, by making her childless? Had her heart been turned to stone (so that she failed to respond to Adam) by her childlessness - or by her career?

I'd love to ask more questions, but I've already gone over the limit!

I found the book profoundly moving.

Was wondering if, when you start writing a book, whether had an expectation of how you want the reader to respond to the different characters?

Hi Ian

Hello from SW London. We were interested by your fictitious high-rise Edith Cavell Wandsworth Hospital located somewhere on Wandsworth Common - that would indeed be a blot on the landscape!

We were somewhat affronted by Fiona's 'north Londoner's ignorance of and disdain for the boundless shabby tangle of London south of the river...' a fair description of how it used to be some thirty years ago, but not now fiercely proud of our corner of London!

We have some questions for you (and there may well be more as the webchat gathers momentum) - hope that's okay?

I've heard that you describe yourself as an English novelist. Failure to act, failure to communicate and self-deception seem to be strong themes in your work. Are these defining English characteristics in your view?

For Mumsnetters who may have missed out on reading some of your seminal works, which three would you recommend as 'must reads' and why?

One of our Mumsnetter book group members comments "I have noticed you often write about the well-educated middle classes (which your readers like to think they are, presumably?). But often about how they are paralysed by their own well-behaved/polite upbringings and end up making disastrous emotional decisions. I'm thinking of Atonement as well as The Children Act and On Chesil Beach. Also...that they often leave the reader deeply depressed. Or is that just my experience? You create these fantastically charming and realistic characters only for tragic denouement." Anything you'd like to add to these observations, Ian?

Thank you .

Thank you for my copy of the book. I've read nearly all of Ian MacEwan's novels ever since I read 'The Child in Time' on the recommendation of a friend and was blown away by it.

My question for Ian is-you have a very recognisable writing style in my opinion. Have you ever had a secret desire to write something completely different-in a different genre or style perhaps? And if you did would you have to use a nom de plume in order for it to be judged 'fairly'?

oh and forgot to say-I agree with a previous poster that I really enjoyed the setting of the Inns of Court and the contrast with the 'real' world outside

I would like to ask Ian McEwan which female authors he thinks write well in the male voice, particularly as his stories so often revolve around a female protagonist.