Having enjoyed Atonement, I looked forward to reading Saturday, expecting an interesting and compelling narrative. I was very quickly disabused of this idea when I realized that Mr. McEwan had decided to use Huntington's Disease (HD) as a literary device to tell a story about a self-interested physician who is forced in the course of a single day to reevaluate the important things in life. Because the symptoms of HD are described in the novel by a brain surgeon, who is assumed to be an authority on the disease, readers who have no experience with HD may be led to believe that Mr. McEwan's stereotype is invariably true: that people with HD are violent and dangerous. Coping with a hereditary and totally debilitating disease is more than enough by itself. To make readers think they should fear such people's behavior is both cruel and a great injustice.