WHAT WE CAN KNOW by Ian McEwan

Critics didn’t dub this author Ian Macabre for nothing, and this book solidifies that reputation.  For the first 150 pages, the highbrow plot treads water as Thomas Metcalfe in 2120 narrates his search for a lost poem from 2014.  Not much has changed in 100 years except that a bunch of landmasses and species of flora and fauna have disappeared, thanks to climate change upheaval and a tsunami caused by a manmade screw-up. The missing poem’s celebrated author read the poem, an homage to his wife, at a dinner party and insisted that there be no other copies.  The poem was a gift, and his wife could do with it as she pleased.  No one has seen it since.  The poet’s wife was a published author herself but abandoned her writing career to become basically a tradwife.  Finally, our first half narrator, Thomas rediscovers a forgotten note in his coat pocket, and things start to get rolling.  His tedious search for the lost poem morphs from an archive search to a more literal hunt for buried treasure.  Part II is something else entirely, but readers will recognize the narrator and the other characters from the 21^st century dinner party.  This is where the storyline indeed becomes macabre, and a lost boy in a train station is just a tiny warmup for what is to come.  Unfortunately, some readers will probably abandon this book before they get to the good stuff.