In the black humour of McEwan's stories [in First Love, Last Rites] sometimes the blackness predominates, sometimes the humour. He can even be blackly Rabelaisian…. Always he is inventive, stylish and keenly observant of grotesque detail. He drives his plots logically to the most absurd or violent but, from his premises, inevitable ends. A brilliant and devastating début. (pp. 112-13)

John Mellors, in London Magazine (© London Magazine 1975), August/September, 1975.

It is likely that McEwan will be compared to other practitioners of the short story form, Roald Dahl in particular. There is about [First Love, Last Rites] the same juxtaposing of simple quirks and complex pathologies, and the same blurry distinctions between the normal and abnormal behavior of seemingly sane individuals that Dahl mastered in "Kiss Kiss" and "Someone Like You" a decade or so ago. At the same time, the comparison is perhaps unfair. McEwan is no...