In Between The Sheets [Paperback]

Ian McEwan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2004

The second collection of short stories.

Call them transcripts of dreams or deadly accurate maps of the tremor zones of the psyche, the seven stories in this collection engage and implicate us in the most fearful ways imaginable. A two-timing pornographer becomes an unwilling object in the fantasies of one of his victims. A jaded millionaire buys himself the perfect mistress and plunges into a hell of jealousy and despair.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“His stories are so resonant and frightening because they are totally original. They are about the recognizable world of private fantasy and nightmare -- a world, despite our protestations to the contrary, we are all involved in.” -- Paul Bailey, Observer

“McEwan proves himself to be an acute psychologist of the ordinary mind.” -- New York Times

"His stories are so resonant and frightening because they are totally original. They are about the recognizable world of private fantasy and nightmare -- a world, despite our protestations to the contrary, we are all involved in." -- The Times

"The style recalls some dangerous activity: skillful driving too fast round corners, say -- Form and content are so intricately linked you can't divide them. This is a writer whose plainest combination of words is, like the draughtsman's proverbial dot, unmistakably telling." -- Financial Times

"His writing is exact, tender, funny, voluptuous, disturbing." -- The Times

"The Maestro." -- New Statesman

"McEwan has -- a style and a vision of life of his own...No one interested in the state and mood of contemporary Britain can afford not to read him." -- John Fowles

"A sparkling and adventurous writer." -- Dennis Potter --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Inside Flap

The second collection of short stories.

Call them transcripts of dreams or deadly accurate maps of the tremor zones of the psyche, the seven stories in this collection engage and implicate us in the most fearful ways imaginable. A two-timing pornographer becomes an unwilling object in the fantasies of one of his victims. A jaded millionaire buys himself the perfect mistress and plunges into a hell of jealousy and despair. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 178 pages
• Publisher: Chivers (June 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754056910
• ISBN-13: 978-0754056911
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

More About the Author

Ian McEwan is a critically acclaimed author of short stories and novels for adults, as well as The Daydreamer, a children's novel illustrated by Anthony Browne. His first published work, a collection of short stories, First Love, Last Rites, won the Somerset Maugham Award. His other award-winning novels are The Child in Time, which won the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, and Amsterdam, which won the 1998 Booker Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good premise, but a weak follow-through, December 17, 2001

By 

Craig Childs (Cordova, TN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: In Between the Sheets (Paperback)

In these sketches, McEwan examines sexual and relationship dysfunctions. Each story has a bizarre twist-- which the characters never seem to recognize as strange-- that is used to emphasize the futility of human emotion. The effect is similar to "magical realism," where an author uses supernatural elements but treats them as commonplace. Here are a few examples:

"Tales of a Kept Ape" is told in first-person, through the eyes of a frustrated lover who cannot understand why the woman he adores has alienated herself from his affections. Bizarre twist: The jilted lover is a pet ape the woman has been sleeping with.

In the title story, a middle aged divorced father worries that his fourteen year old daughter has fallen into a lesbian relationship with an older woman. Bizarre twist: The older woman is a three-foot dwarf.

In "Dead as They Come", we watch an obsessive, arrogant millionaire fall madly in love with a woman, only to destroy the relationship out of uncontrollable jealousy. Bizarre twist: The woman is a department store mannequin.

My complaint of these stories is that the bizarre "twists" are never explicitly dealt with by the characters. It's as if McEwan wants us to believe that loving an ape, or a dwarf, or a mannequin is no less strange (or less hopeless) than loving another human being. So, each tale becomes a plodding, why-can't-we-get-along diatribe that is neither interesting nor enlightening.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Best forgotten - not even for big McEwan fans !, December 6, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: In Between the Sheets (Paperback)

I'm a big, big fan of Ian McEwan's. I've read and loved virtually everything he's written, especially "Black Dogs" and "Atonement", so it's doubly disappointing for me to say that "In Between The Sheets", his second collection of short stories, is without doubt the worst and only substandard piece of work he has put out so far. Granted, what we have here is very early McEwan but that doesn't excuse the amateurish and shoddy quality of these mostly pointless vignettes. "First Love, Last Rites", his earliest work, wasn't McEwan at his prime but it was more than halfway decent and contained more than a trace of promise of his developing craft as a short story writer and novelist. "In Between The Sheets" just seems like scraping the bottom of the barrel.

I can't name anything in here that is remotely memorable. Indeed, it was so bad I hardly finished the book. "Pornography" is mundane and pedestrian. It's been done to death (and better) by others. "Reflections Of A Kept Ape" almost succeeds - could the ape be the retarded child of the woman ? are the ape's sexual fantasies just its hallucination ? I haven't a clue what "Two Fragments" is all about. "Dead As They Come" is ludicrous. By the time I got to "In Between The Sheets", I lost interest and couldn't wait for this slim volume to end.

The publishers should quietly delete this title from McEwan's catalogue as it diminishes his tall standing among the great contemporary writers of today.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Introspective but brilliant short story collection., December 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: In Between the Sheets (Paperback)

Ian McEwan has always been the doyen of the macabre. In this, his second collection of stories, his language can be both resonant ('I do not care for posturing women but she "struck" me') and profane ('I love the scent asparagus lends the urine'). Whether describing the 'love' of a tailor's dummy or bondage games in a metropolitan setting, McEwan's prose is masterly and his insights unsettling. Excellent but not as great as his earlier volume, 'First Love, Last Rites.'