But, as the novel begins, it is her own marriage that seems under threat, as her academic husband of 30 years tries to explain his sudden urge to go off with a pretty young statistician before he gets too old to enjoy one last fling. Her professional life is dedicated to resolving the problems thrown up by family breakdown and childcare disputes. The case comes before Fiona Maye, a High Court judge who sits in the Family Division. (b) the administration of a child’s property or the application of any income arising from it, the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration. When a court determines any question with respect to. Hence the significance of the Children Act 1998, section 1(1) of which provides: Thus, at the heart of this book is a case involving a teenage boy with leukaemia who will die unless his doctors are permitted to give him the blood transfusion which he and his parents nevertheless refuse because it conflicts with their faith as devout Jehovah’s Witnesses. For McEwan seems particularly interested in cases involving conflicts between legal rights and religious obligations. But its true purpose seems to be to provide a literary appreciation of the art of writing judgments. Ian McEwan’s latest novel, The Children Act, is named after a statute and the story it tells is about a High Court judge.
