SOURCE: Lesser, Wendy. “The Heart of the Matter.” New Republic 207, no. 21 (16 November 1992): 41-2, 44.

In the following review, Lesser discusses the two phases of McEwan's career commonly identified by critics, examining such elements as plot, characterization, and style in Black Dogs.

Ian McEwan's career is sometimes seen by his critics as falling into two distinct clumps. The first, in this view, consists of his first three books: the stories in First Love, Last Rites (1975), the early novel called The Cement Garden (1978), and a second set of stories called In Between the Sheets (1978). The turning point is either just before or just after The Comfort of Strangers (1981), which in any case is seen as the transitional novel. And then, in this saga of the divided author, we have the “mature” McEwan: The Child in Time (1987), The Innocent (1989), and, now, one presumes, Black Dogs. The difference between early and late McEwan...