Saturday
Henry Perowne, a neurosurgeon in a London hospital, wakes early one Saturday morning to see an airliner flying by with one engine on fire. His first thought is that terrorists are attempting a prelude to the peace march through the streets of London that day in protest to the Iraq war. He learns later that the plane landed safely and had nothing to do with the anti-war protest. However, later that morning the peace march forces him to detour his car on the way to a squash game, and in the process he sideswipes a car owned by a young man named Baxter, who becomes the antagonist of the novel.
Baxter and his two accomplices rough up the doctor a little, but Henry bluffs his way free by making up a medical diagnosis of Baxter’s behavior, and he is able to get to his squash game.
Henry’s Saturday afternoon is routine. First he visits his mother in a nearby nursing home, and later he attends a music rehearsal in which his son Theo is performing. After that he shops at a fishmonger’s store in preparation for the family dinner that night. His daughter and father-in-law are arriving separately from France for the dinner. While driving on these errands he notices a car which resembles Baxter’s, but it follows him only briefly.
Rosalind, Henry’s wife, stays on her job late that day and is the last of the family to arrive home. To everyone’s surprise, she is ushered into the house by two men, Baxter and a friend, who forcefully threaten Henry and his family. Henry feels somewhat responsible, but he is not sure that his medical expertise will save him and his family this time.
Baxter’s threat was the major conflict of McEwan’s story. The first two-thirds of the novel deal only with the minor problems that might make up anyone’s normal Saturday. However, such a delay in suspense may frustrate those readers who are looking for more than normal situations in a novel. Saturday was copyrighted in 2005.