E is for...? Marieville Esplanade, Sandy Bay. August 2011. A good week’s reading had this week, packed with quality. First up is Ian McEwan’s Black Dogs . An interesting exercise in creative writing, Black Dogs ‘mashes up’ the concept of a constructed autobiography. The story revolves around a frightening event which changed the whole life of the narrator's mother-in-law, and ripples throughout a family (continuing through to the extended family). Compounding the effect, the experience was not shared by her husband. Thus set in transit is a conflict of one partner’s pragmatic, scientific and materialistic beliefs set against another’s faith-based, spiritual journey. So, in spite of an enduring love and attachment, the couple part and pursue their own lives, shuffling children between the two worlds. Constructed in flashbacks (and flash-forward’s, and assumed reconstructed events by the narrator), the human interest is never overwhelmed by subtexts that include exploration of class...