Over the course of the book, Stephen and Julie visit one another very infrequently, their marriage effectively nullified by their shared loss. This act of acceptance, coupled with the fact that the apartment is now rid of emotional ties, causes Kate to move out. She eventually awakens from her stasis and proceeds to clean out Kate’s room, bagging up all the items. Meanwhile, Julie exists in a near-catatonic state, paralyzed by grief. While he arrives at the meetings on time and stays for their duration, Stephen participates little in the way of discussion. The purpose of the subcommittee is to write a handbook on childcare. His only form of semi-employment is as a member of the Official Commission on Child’s Care Subcommittee on Reading and Writing. When feeling too exhausted or depressed to work on his search, Stephen crumples onto the couch with a bottle of scotch, parked in front of the television constantly tuned to the Olympic games or various brainless programs. He pores through newspaper reports and other records, identifying and tracking down families in the area whose child has died relatively recently. Perhaps in a case of wishful thinking, Stephen theorizes that Kate has been kidnapped by a loving family that lost a child. Obsessed with finding Kate, Stephen devotes his life over the next few weeks to finding his daughter. Devastated and mortified by his own inattentiveness, Stephen returns home to deliver the tragic news to Julie. Joined by other shoppers and eventually the police, Stephen canvasses the area, but it is as if Kate has simply vanished. He searches up, down, and around the block but to no avail. She is not in the store, nor in the parking lot, nor in the loading area of the grocery store. A sense of panic builds, as his efforts to find Kate prove fruitless. Initially, Stephen remains calm, believing that his daughter could not have strayed far. However, when he turns back, Kate is nowhere to be seen. In the checkout line, Stephen removes her from the cart and looks away for just a few moments as he unloads the groceries. While they shop, Kate rides around in the basket of the shopping cart. He lets Julie sleep in and prepares to take his three-year-old daughter, Kate, to the market.

A self-described “accidental” children’s book author, Stephen wakes up next to his wife, Julie, one Saturday morning in their London apartment.

In 2017, the novel was adapted into a BBC television film starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Kelly Macdonald. It won the Whitbread Novel Award given to exemplary works of literature by English and Irish authors. One of English author Ian McEwan’s most beloved works, The Child in Time (1987) tells the story of a children’s book author whose three-year-old daughter is kidnapped.

Saturday ian mcewan sparknotes