The Children Act - Ian McEwan
There’s a hoary joke about a married couple who divorced when both are 54 after the husband had an affair with an 18-year-old. Once the wife had found a boy-toy of her own, she gleefully informed her ex-husband that she got the better end of the deal, mathematically speaking: after all, 18 goes into 54 a lot more times than 54 goes into 18. Ba-dump-bump.
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| McEwan ca. 2008 (source: wikipedia) |
Such might well be the story of Fiona and Jack, childless and almost 60, when he decides he “needs his space” to take up with a coworker born well after his and Fiona’s wedding day. Their thirty-some-year marriage sundered in one acrimonious moment, Jack departs for his would-be lover’s flat and Fiona returns to her work. The scenario may be regrettably commonplace, but the actors are not: Lady Justice Fiona Maye is a judge in family court. Each day the slim, elegant juror presides over the dissolution of marital unions, the tawdry tales before her bench really not unlike her own.
