Ian McEwan on Writing His Newest Novel, The Children Act — vogue.com

Fiona Maye, a distinguished London family court judge, is blindsided when her husband announces his intention to have an affair—and asks for her blessing. Meanwhile, she’s been tasked with the ruling of her career, on a case involving a critically ill teenage boy, a Jehovah’s Witness, who has refused treatment on religious grounds. In weighing her decision, she decides to visit the young man in the hospital, leading to a classically McEwan showdown between rationality and faith—and the possibility of art to transcend all. Ian McEwan’s elegant and unputdownably readable thirteenth novel, The Children Act (Nan A. Talese / Doubleday), out today, finds the master of literary suspense at his most unexpectedly tender. (An excerpt of the novel was published in our September issue.) Reached by phone at his home in Gloucestershire, I spoke with the Booker Prize–winning author about the inspiration behind his richest female character since Atonement’s Briony—and about the real court case that inspired the novel.

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