The Children Act.

• Author: Gwynn, Ellen B.
• Position: Book review

The Children Act

by Ian McEwan

Ian McEwan has written a brief and compelling novel about a trial judge and the emotional toll exacted upon her by the nature of her work. McEwan tells the story of a particularly hard case in exquisite prose, while offering insightful commentary on judging and the legal system along the way.

Fiona Maye is a conscientious family division judge in London's High Court (a trial-level court). When her husband of 35 years tells her he wants to have an affair, she reacts with anger and disbelief, but must push these aside to keep up with her responsibilities to the parties who come before her. As she deals with her case load and her feeling of personal betrayal, Justice Maye can't help but think about some of the hard cases she has decided, recounting factual and legal details that display the complexity of the cases and the care she takes in reaching her judgments. For example, one case had required her to decide whether Siamese twins should be separated or die conjoined. Her decision, which would result in the death of the weaker twin, affected her acutely. "She was the one who had dispatched a child from the world, argued him out of existence in 34 elegant pages."

The novel's central case involves a hospital seeking emergency authority to forcibly transfuse a boy just shy of 18, who refused the procedure because he and his parents are Jehovah's Witnesses and believe that transfusion violates Biblical proscriptions against mixing blood. Justice Maye's primary obligation under the 1989 Children Act is to protect the child's welfare. After hearing the facts and argument from the parties, which McEwan recounts succinctly and unhurriedly, without manufactured suspense, Justice Maye stays the proceeding to visit the child to determine whether he is competent to make such a decision. This echoes an experience of appellate judge Sir Alan Ward, when he was a trial judge, which McEwan describes in an interesting essay in The Guardian --also a worthwhile read, but only after one has read the novel.

The judge spends about an hour with the visibly weakening young Adam, during which they discuss not only his family life and religious beliefs, but also the poetry he has written and the violin he...