Sweet Tooth is a well written book by Ian McEwan which is about several things all at once.
While not exactly a bildungsroman it is about a young protagonist growing up into adulthood. The protagonist in this case is a slightly precocious bishop's daughter from a quaint cathedral town in England. She enters the world of espionage through her much older lover and in that process gets acquainted with the writer who is her next. While not exactly living in poverty she reminds me of Dulcie - 'the girl who lived on 6 dollars a week' in O Henry's " An Unfinished Story"
The book is also about how secret services in the west waged the soft cold war with USSR. This was done largely by encouraging and promoting the right kind of writers, painters and other artists. Something tells me this hasn't stopped yet.
I am sure there are some deeper literary allusions that I have missed completely.
Its an enjoyable read by Ian MacEwan - just like other books by him that I have read such as Amsterdam and Atonement.
