In the eight stories of First Love, Last Rites, depravity can masquerade as innocence and butterflies can be sinister. The author is equally capable of showing how the life of a child is devastated by the macabre and of distilling the sensations of first love, tracing his initiation rituals, infusing them with a luxurious sensual imagery. Combining the unusual and the provocative, tenderness and icy humor, Ian McEwan reveals the hidden face of our ghosts and offers us a different vision of our daily lives.