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.
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