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Nutshell

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About this listen

Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but not with John. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb.

Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a classic tale of murder and deceit from one of the world’s master storytellers.

 Family Life Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction Witty Thought-Provoking Funny

Critic reviews

An astonishing act of literary ventriloquism unlike any in recent literature. A bravura performance, it is the finest recent work from a true master… Told from a perspective unlike any other, Nutshell is a shocking tale of murder and treachery from one of the world’s master storytellers.
A creative gamble that pays off brilliantly…Witty and gently tragic, this short, bewitching novel is an ode to humanity’s beauty, selfishness and inextinguishable longing. (Hephzibah Anderson)
Ian McEwan’s embryonic spin on Hamlet is a virtuoso feat of wordplay … Virtuoso entertainment. (Tim Adams)
While the literary device of an unborn baby narrating a novel from the womb is hardly original… Ian McEwan employs it with aplomb... Here everything is tightly controlled and the tension ratchets up as our all-knowing unborn watches helplessly from his watery sack while the dastardly plan progresses through a series of nail-biting moments… The ending is beautifully contrived… The book is elegantly written with plenty of pungent, topical observations upon the world. (John Harding)
At once playful and deadly serious, delightful and frustrating it is one of McEwan’s hardest to categorise works, and all the more interesting for it. (Robert Douglas-Fairhurst)
Nutshell is an orb, a Venetian glass paperweight, of a book; a place where, be warned , it puts you in the quoting mood…it is a consciously late, deliberately elegiac , masterpiece, a calling together of everything McEwan has learned and knows about his art. (Kate Clanchy)
A very alternative Hamlet… the tension ratchets up as our all-knowing unborn watches helplessly from his watery sack while the dastardly plan progresses through a series of nail-biting moments… The book is elegantly written with plenty of pungent, topical observations upon the world its narrator will soon be emerging into. (Daily Mail)
One of the most hilariously unlikely narrators in contemporary fiction. (Claire Lowdon)
A fast, arch beach read… A psychological thriller with a bad marriage and murder at its centre… McEwan has thrown in Gone Girl intrigue with The Girl on the Train suspense and given us his take on how toxic a marriage can get when spliced with a Shakespearean cast. Who knew McEwan could mix high and low literary genres to create such a bizarrely readable mash-up? (Arifa Akbar)
The book’s finest exploration is of poetry. The author offers up everything he knows about its intensity, and why he loves it so. It is clear Mr McEwan has had enormous fun writing Nutshell; now it is the reader’s turn to be entertained too. Dark as it is, this novel is a thing of joy.
All stars
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I would never have chosen to read this but amazing! Addictive listening. I couldn't switch it off. 😊

Superb - suggested by Book Group

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Some well thought-out philosophies scattered throughout this murder plot story. Engaging book, & as always an intelligent script from this well known writer who is a polished expert in his art. Really liked the delivery of the narrator too.

Deep thinking author. Good, intelligent yarn.

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A murder plot with a unique narrator, this is a very clever device that's executed surprisingly well. It's also, through a precocious pre-born's Radio4 habit, a reflection on some of the big themes in last years news and society. Worth a listen.

Smart and current, short and bittersweet.

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Funny and insightful story. Enjoyed it immensely. I will be reading more by this author.

Great book, beautifully read.

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Nice way to tell a story. Not my favorite story though, but interesting. Really good narrator.

Not the best

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