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The Cement Garden cover

The Cement Garden is a 1978 novel by Ian McEwan. It was adapted into a 1993 film of the same name, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson. A quote from the script (as spoken by Gainsbourg in the film) is featured in the introduction to the 2000 Madonna song "What It Feels Like for a Girl".

In The Cement Garden, the father of four children dies. His death is followed by the death of the children's mother. In order to avoid being taken into custody, the children hide their mother's death from the outside world by encasing her corpse in cement in their basement. Two of the siblings, a teenage boy and girl, enter into an incestuous relationship, while the younger son starts to experiment with transvestism.

The narrator is Jack (15) who has two sisters, Julie (17) and Sue (13) and one brother, Tom (6). When they were younger, Jack describes how he and Julie would play a 'game' with their sister Sue. This game involves stripping Sue of her clothes and inspecting her intimate body parts as if they were scientists observing a new life form. Jack then mentions how he longs to do the same to his older sister but it was not allowed.

When Julie begins to date a man called Derek and invites him round to their house, Jack feels jealous and shows hostility towards him. Derek becomes more and more interested in what is hidden in their cellar but the children attempt to hide it from him. When a smell begins to emanate from down there, he helps to reclose the trunk their mother is hidden in. Jack eventually learns from Tom that Derek has told his brother that their mother is down in the cellar.

The story comes to a climax when Jack enters, apparently absent-mindedly, naked into Julie's bedroom. Only Tom is there and he begins to talk to him. Soon, Julie enters and perhaps surprisingly, does not say much or show surprise on his nakedness, only to joke that 'It is big'. They sit on the bed and whilst talking, they become more and more intimate with each other. Soon Julie is holding out her breast to Jack and encouraging him to go on. He begins to suck it. Right at this point Derek enters, remarks that he has seen it all at last and calls them 'Sick'. When he is gone, they begin to have sex. A thudding noise can be heard and their sister informs them that Derek is smashing up the concrete coffin. They begin to talk, remembering their mother, and after a while, they hear police cars outside.

It was adapted into a 1993 film of the same name, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson.

• Official Ian McEwan web page on the novel
• The Cement Garden at the Internet Movie Database
• Essay by Nick Ambler
• Literary Encyclopedia