| Enduring Love | |
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First Edition hardback cover |
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| Author(s) | Ian McEwan |
| Country | England |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape |
| Publication date | 1997 |
| Media type | print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 247 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0224050311 (first edition) |
| OCLC Number | 37706997 |
Enduring Love (1997) is a novel by British writer Ian McEwan. The plot concerns two strangers who become perilously entangled after witnessing a deadly accident.
On a beautiful and cloudless day, a middle-aged couple celebrate their union with a picnic. Joe Rose and his long-term partner Clarissa Mellon are about to open a bottle of champagne—a 1987 Daumas-gassac—when a cry interrupts them. A hot air balloon, with a 10-year-old boy in the basket and his grandfather being dragged behind it, has been ripped from its moorings. Joe immediately joins several other men in an effort to bring the balloon to safety. In the rescue attempt, one man, John Logan, dies.
Another of the would-be-rescuers is Jed Parry. Joe and Jed exchange a passing glance, a glance that has devastating consequences and that indelibly burns an obsession into Jed's soul, for Jed suffers from de Clerambault's syndrome, a disorder that causes the sufferer to believe that someone else is in love with him or her. Delusional and dangerous, Jed gradually wreaks havoc in Joe's life, testing the limits of his beloved rationalism, threatening Clarissa's love for him, and driving him to the brink of murder and madness.
During a lunch with Clarissa and her godfather, Joe witnesses the attempted murder of another man, resulting in the man being shot in the shoulder. However, he realises that the bullet was meant for him and that the similar character of the people at the other table had misled the killers into thinking the other man was their target. Before the hitman can deliver the fatal shot, Jed, orchestrator of the event, intervenes to save the innocent man's life before fleeing from the scene. In the subsequent interrogation, Joe insists that it was Jed who was behind this, but the detective does not believe him, possibly because he appears to get many of the facts of the incident incorrect. Joe leaves dissatisfied, knowing that Jed is still out there and looking for him. Like the detective, however, Clarissa becomes skeptical that Jed is stalking Joe and that Joe is in any danger. This, plus the stress Joe suffers at Jed's hands, strains their relationship.
Fearing for his safety, Joe purchases a gun through an acquaintance. On the journey home, he receives a call from Jed, who is at Joe's home with Clarissa. Upon arriving at his apartment, Joe sees Jed sitting on the sofa with Clarissa. Jed then asks for Joe's forgiveness, before taking out a knife and pointing it at his own neck. To prevent Jed from killing himself, Joe shoots him in the arm. He escapes without charges. In the first of the novel's appendices (a medical report on Jed's condition) we learn that Joe and Clarissa are eventually reconciled and that they adopt a child. In the second (a letter from Jed to Joe), we learn that after three years, Jed remains uncured, and is now living in a psychiatric hospital.
In 2004, Enduring Love was adapted into a film of the same name. The film version was directed by Roger Michell, written by Joe Penhall, and starred Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans and Samantha Morton, with Bill Nighy, Susan Lynch and Corin Redgrave.
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