Although The Children Act (#650) is ostensibly about a family court judge deciding on whether a boy just short of his majority should be allowed to refuse a life-saving transfusion in keeping with his Jehovah's Witness beliefs, it's really Fiona's story.
Ian McEwan introduces us to Fiona on a Sunday evening when she's reviewing briefs for her next day's hearings in London's Family Court. Her husband approaches her to tell her that he's going to have an affair. Although she is preoccupied with cases, his announcement comes from out of the blue. Before they can really get into it, a phone call interrupts. Fiona will need to determine if a hospital can go ahead with a transfusion to save an adolescent's life. A decision must be made within hours. By the time things are settled for court, her husband is gone with his luggage and their car.
The middle third of this book deals with the issues both for and against the transfusion, moral, ethical and legal. Under terms of the British The Children Act, Fiona must decide in the best interest of the child. She feels the only way she can do this properly is meet Adam, the boy at the center. It's a meeting that will profoundly affect everyone assigned to the case. Without giving away the ending, I can say that things did not entirely work out the way I expected.
Mr. McEwan's writing is beautiful. He manages to perfectly capture Fiona's devotion to her responsibilities, even when it come at the cost of her personal wishes. She and her husband's roles in contemporary society are switched here, and thus even more clearly illuminated. A brief investment of your time will yield positive results in reading The Children Act.
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