Lessons

Lessons (2022) is a novel by British writer Ian McEwan, author of Atonement (2001). Protagonist Roland Baines, a single parent living in London in 1986, reflects on how his piano teacher sexually assaulted him when he was 11. The novel combines a description of Roland’s life up until 2022 with his recollections of the past, tracking how the sexual assault and his various relationships have affected his life. The novel’s central themes include The Significance of Lessons and Teaching, The Intertwining of History with Personal Narratives, and Writing as a Means to Reveal and Conceal Truth.

This guide uses the 2022 Penguin edition.

Content Warning: The source text depicts a nonconsensual sexual and romantic relationship between a minor and an adult.

Plot Summary

Lessons is divided into 12 chapters and three parts. In Chapters 1 and 2, Roland Baines, a single parent living in London in 1986, recalls an incident with a piano teacher named Miriam Cornell when he was 11. Cornell pinched him on the thigh and hit him after he made a mistake. A week later, Cornell kissed him and invited him to her house.

Meanwhile, in the present, Roland explains how his wife, Alissa, recently disappeared, telling him not to find her. He was visited by an inspector who suspects Roland is involved in Alissa’s disappearance.

In Chapters 3 and 4, Roland recalls the story of Alissa’s mother, Jane. Born in England in 1920, Jane worked for a literary magazine. Just after the war, she received a commission to visit Munich to research and write a piece about the White Rose, an anti-Nazi group. While researching them, she was inspired to pursue a literary career. She also met Heinrich, Alissa’s father, whom she married. However, Jane had to give up her literary ambitions due to having a family.

Roland recalls the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when he was 14. This had led him to visit Cornell’s house out of fear he might die without having sex. They then started a sexual relationship.

In Chapters 5 and 6, Roland explains how Alissa was his teacher when he was learning German in 1977, though he did not start seeing her until several years later. In 1979, Roland was going out with a French journalist, Mireille, whose father was a diplomat in Berlin. Together, they traveled to East Berlin and befriended an East German couple whom he then made repeated trips to see until they were arrested by the Ministry for State Security (Stasi).

Roland’s euphoria at their release led him to attend a Bob Dylan concert in 1980, where he bumped into Alissa again and they exchanged addresses. Two years later, she showed up at his door, and they began a relationship and eventually married.

In 1989, three years after Alissa left Roland and vanished, Roland joins his friend Peter on a business trip to Berlin just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. After visiting the wall’s remnants, Roland goes to a nearby café, where he notices Alissa.

In Chapters 7 and 8, Roland approaches Alissa, and they talk. Alissa explains that she left Roland because she wanted to avoid her mother’s fate. Alissa also gives Roland a copy of the novel she wrote, The Journey. Roland reads the novel, which is based on the trip across Europe taken by her mother.

Roland recalls the summer of 1964. Roland had failed his exams, and Cornell invited him to stay with her. Three days before his 16th birthday, Cornell proposed they go to Edinburgh to get married. When Roland was hesitant about the proposal, they split up.

In 1995, five years after meeting Alissa in Berlin, Roland plans to marry a longtime friend, Daphne. Two years later, though, Daphne tells Roland that she is going back to her ex-husband, Peter, since he seems unsure about marriage.

In Chapter 9, it is 2001. Roland gets a call from the police encouraging him to press charges against Cornell. Roland confronts Cornell, who justifies how she treated Roland by saying she had just had her heart broken at the time. Nine years later, in 2010, Roland proposes to Daphne, and she accepts. However, she is diagnosed with terminal cancer only days later.

Seven years after Daphne’s death, Roland prepares to scatter her ashes in a place in the Lake District, which they visited. However, as Roland is about to do this, Peter appears, fights Roland, and then scatters Daphne’s ashes.

In 2020, Roland receives a call from Alissa’s ex-agent saying she wants to see him. When Roland visits her in Germany, she denies that a character in her latest novel, a husband who beats his wife, is based on Roland. Alissa also reveals that she is dying, and that Roland was the only man she ever loved.