Enduring Love by Ian McEwan

This book is seriously cracked out. It starts innocently enough, although with a fairly grim scenario where four strangers in a field bear witness to a tragic hot air balloon accident where a man is killed. The group are now bound by the tragedy, with each man thinking they could have done something more to save him. One of the men, Joe, is a freelance science writer who lives with his girlfriend Clarissa in London. One day soon after the freak incident, one of the other men who was at the scene, Jed, calls him out of the blue, saying all manner of strange things: “I love you”, “I want to be with you” ‘we’re meant to be together”. Leaves dozens of messages on his answering machine. Turns up at his house at night. Watches him from street corners. Makes thinly veiled threats to harm Clarissa so they can be together. Everything bar boiling the bunny or leaving a horse head in the bed. Joe goes to the police who just think he’s making it up, and Clarissa starts questioning his mental state. It’s all the more unsettling for the unusual male-on-male stalker set-up, and for the fact that Joe has done nothing to attract Jed’s infatuation. I felt a bit strange at the end of the book … scratched my head a little, did some laps around the block, had more tea and still undecided on whether or not this was a thumbs up or down. An ambiguous answer for an ambiguous book.