Winner of the 1998 Booker Prize, Ian McEwan paints a darkly elegant comedy about the fierce nature of friendship and the deathly grip of love. Two old friends join a funeral for Molly Lane, outside a crematorium. Both Clive, Britain's most successful modern composer and Vernon, editor of The Judge, had been her lovers before their careers took off. But the throng on that cold February day also included many of Molly's other lovers, notably a man poised to become England's next prime minister. The funeral sets off a strange chain of events, transforming the lives of Molly's lovers in Amsterdam.

A National and International Bestseller
A Globe and Mail Notable Book of 1998

On a chilly February day two old friends meet in the throng outside a crematorium to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. Both Clive Linley and Vernon Halliday had been Molly''s lovers in the days before they reached their current eminence - Clive as Britain''s most successful modern composer, Vernon as editor of the broadsheet The Judge. But gorgeous, feisty Molly had other lovers too, notably Julian Garmony, the Foreign Secretary, a notorious right-winger poised to be the next prime minister. What happens in the aftermath of her funeral has a profound and shocking effect on all her lovers'' lives, and erupts in the most purely enjoyable fiction Ian McEwan has ever written.

In a 1987 interview in Publishers Weekly, Ian McEwan said, "[W]hen you love someone, it''s not uncommon to measure that love by fantasizing about his absence. You gauge things by their opposite." In McEwan''s works, the opposite is a theme. His characters may take action that seems opposite to all sorts of things, their best interests, their lovers, their friends, their morals, or their political, religious, or rationalist beliefs. This is the tension and the story. And it is this, along with his acute and beautifully written observations about the opposites that infuse our lives, that keep readers waiting for the next McEwan novel.

McEwan is the author of two short-story collections, First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets, and eight novels: The Cement Garden; The Comfort of Strangers, short-listed for the 1981 Booker Prize; The Child in Time, winner of the 1987 Whitbread Novel of the Year Award; The Innocent; Black Dogs; The Daydreamer; Enduring Love; and Amsterdam, winner of the 1998 Booker Prize.

1. Talk about the tone of this novel. Is it ironic? Humorous? Menacing?

2. Think about Clive and Vernon and your feelings about each at different stages of the novel. Did those feelings change? If so, at what key points?

3. In a relatively short novel, the author devotes many pages to Clive''s creative process. What do you think of the author''s description of the process itself and of his decision to give it so much space?

4. At one early point in the novel, Vernon Halliday thinks this about himself, "[H]e was infinitely diluted; he was simply the sum of all the people who had listened to him, and when he was alone, he was nothing at all." Discuss this prescient statement, in light of Vernon''s fate.

5. Discuss the role of lucky (and unlucky) coincidence in the novel: Vernon''s rise in his profession due to "Pategate" or the story in the Judge about euthanasia in Holland that leads Clive and Vernon there.

6. Talk about the author''s skill in showing the workplace; the composer''s process and studio; the newspaper editor''s office.

7. This novel is funny - the Siamese twins story, the sub-editor who could not spell - talk about the role of humor in the novel.

8. At different points in the novel, both Clive and Vernon think that Clive has given more to their friendship than Vernon has. Talk about the form and course of their friendship. Can friendships ever be equal?

9. The author suggests that years and success narrow life. Is this true to your experience?

10. The author withholds information throughout the novel, offering bits that are only fully developed later (the photographs of Garmony, the importance of the "medical scandal in Holland"). Talk about the author''s use of suspense.

11. How shaky is Clive''s moral foundation? Should he be allowed to condemn his fellow artists who "assume the license of free artistic spirit" and renege on commitments, even as Clive ignores the plight of a woman he witnesses being attacked?

12. Vernon wants to crucify Garmony for the greater good of the republic. Is this ever a valid reason to go after a politician? Do you agree with Clive that Vernon is betraying Molly''s trust? Or do you side with Vernon in his wish to stop a vile leader from gaining power?

13. Talk about the parallels between the fictional political scandal the author creates and the real one that has occupied Washington, D.C., for the past year. Is the author commenting on U.S. politics and media with this novel?

14. Is everybody in Amsterdam a hypocrite?

15. Clive thinks he''s a genius. How do you define genius? Does Clive fit the definition?

16. Talk about Molly and the importance of her role in the novel. Are there other examples in literature of characters who carry great weight and importance even though they never appear?

17. At Allen Crags where Clive watches the woman and man struggle, the author writes, "Clive knew exactly what it was he had to do....He had decided at the very moment he was interrupted." Was there any question in your mind at that point about what Clive''s decision was? Were you correct?

18. What do you make of the author''s choice to have Clive die happy, that is, unaware that he''s been poisoned, but to have Vernon grasp in his last seconds "...where he really was and what must have been in his champagne and who these visitors were."

Booker Prize 1998