McEwan's Long Lost Brother

Personal drama does rather seems to adhere to novelist Ian McEwan without him needing to hunt it down in fiction.

Back in 1999, the police were called in when his 13-year old son was kidnapped by McEwan's ex-wife.

And now it seems he has a long-lost brother. According to the Independent:

Dave Sharp, 64, a bricklayer, tracked down McEwan, unaware that his brother was a renowned novelist. It was not until he was in his sixties that Mr Sharp discovered he was born as a result of a wartime affair, and was given away at a railway station to a family who answered an ad in a personal column.

The ad simply read: "Wanted, home for baby boy, age one month: complete surrender."

His mother, Rose Wort, was desperate to get rid of the child she had named Stuart before her husband returned from the war. She handed over her baby at Reading station.

The author describes the reunion with his brother five years ago as "a surprise and a pleasure" and the McEwans welcomed Sharpe and his family into theirs. It turns out that both families had been living within a few miles of each other.

Sharpe says that he did not know that his brother was famous until he found their conversations kept being interrupted by autograph hunters.

Now it seems that sharpe has a book about his life on the boil, a memoir (co-written with a ghost-writer) called Complete Surrender.

Why didn't Ian McEwan use the plot himself, asks the Oxford Times?:

"I did suggest it," Dave laughed, "but he said it was my story and that therefore I should tell it."

Thanks, Swifty, for the heads up on this story.

(Pic lifted from the Oxford Times)

Related Posts:

On Ian McEwan

His Saturday, My Sunday (4/9/05)
Hello, Would You like a Free Book? (20/9/05)
A Little Literary Lifting (2/12/06)
Pynchon on Pinchin' (10/12/06)