Sign up to The Irish Times Archive (1859 - 2008)My Account »

FICTION: EILEEN BATTERSBYreviews Solarby Ian McEwan, Cape, 285pp, £18.99

THE PLANET IS in danger; worse than that, it is doomed unless an answer is found. Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard is an unlikely saviour. He has a mild interest in that global fear and the various conferences it demands – after all, that shared anxiety keeps him busy on the lecture circuit. Beard is not in such good shape himself, bloated and unfit, possibly alcoholic, and burnt out; he is a mess, even if his name remains a useful commodity. Long since contented with living off a reputation established early in a life that now seems to have belonged to someone else, his major interests are sex, food and cockily extending dinner invitations to females he happens upon while avoiding others who think they may have a hold on him.