A CHILD IN TIME by Ian...

A CHILD IN TIME by Ian McEwan (King Penguin: $7.95)

Stephen Lewis dresses his 3-year-old daughter in her winter clothes and takes her to the supermarket. At the checkout counter he lifts Kate out of the shopping cart and sets her down beside him. Only after he’s emptied all the groceries does he notice that she’s gone.

“The Child in Time” is the heart-rending tale of the loss of a child. A nearly unbroachable rift develops between Stephen and his wife, Julie, who leaves home to piece her life together alone in the countryside. The novel chronicles Stephen’s own recovery: the crisis in his career as writer of children’s books, his drinking, the death of his best friend.

Time “spirals in upon itself,” Roberta Smoodin wrote in her review. “The cautionary nature of all that has come before, the peril of life and love, has been somewhat redeemed by the continuing, parallel existence of the past. . . . A brilliant novel.”