In order to avoid being taken into foster care, the children hide their mother's death from the outside world by encasing her corpse in cement in the cellar.

Sexual tension between Jack and his older sister, Julie, becomes increasingly obvious as they take over the roles of "mother" and "father" in the house, which is gradually deteriorating into squalor.

When Julie begins to date a young man called Derek, aged 23, and invites him to their house, Jack feels jealous and shows hostility towards him.

When a smell begins to emanate from the cellar, the children tell him their dead dog, Cosmo, is encased in the cement.

"[3] Robert Towers of The New York Review of Books deemed The Cement Garden "morbid, full of repellent imagery – and irresistibly readable."

Paul Abelman of The Spectator called it "just about perfect", and Blake Morrison declared in The Times Literary Supplement that the novel "should consolidate Ian McEwan's reputation as one of the best young writers in Britain today".

[4] In The New York Times, however, Anne Tyler praised McEwan as a skillful writer but stated that "these children are not--we trust--real people at all.

[6] Kitty Aldridge of The Independent argued in a 2012 article, "McEwan's calm, exquisite sentences lead you into the secret and strange world of the post-war middle-class family, with its unique clash of make-do-and-mend and sexual revolution.

"[7] In a lukewarm review for a stage adaptation of the novel, Charles Spencer of The Daily Telegraph said that the book remains "powerful and disconcerting" despite a narrative that is clearly heavily influenced by Lord of the Flies.

[9] In a 2018 article, Elaina Patton of The New Yorker praised the author's extensive discussion of the minutiae of the environment, writing, "McEwan's evocative detail and perfect British prose lend a genteel decorum to the death and decay that surround the family.

A developed version of this adaption opened in London at The Vaults, Waterloo, starring George MacKay and Ruby Bentall in January 2014.