This post is part of a series in which Readers Services librarians suggest a good starting place for authors appearing in our LIVE from the NYPL series this fall.
Margaret Atwood will join Fiona Shaw on Friday, Oct. 14, 7-9 p.m. at the Celeste Bartos Forum in NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Get tickets now.
The Blind Assassin (2000)
I suggest starting your journey into the fiction of Margaret Atwood with The Blind Assassin. Published in 2000, the novel won the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction.
Like much of Atwood's work, the novel falls into the historical fiction genre and is set in Canada. The novel is so intricately plotted that it involves a novel within the novel, plus a third story entitled, “The Blind Assassin.” The plot revolves around two sisters, Iris and Laura Chase, and is told from the present day looking back on their childhood, young adult, and middle-aged years.
To say it’s full of twists and surprises doesn’t do justice to the impact of the twists and surprises. It is experimental in style, and one of those stories that reveals itself in the most satisfying way. —Lynn Lobash
Cat’s Eye (1998)
Atwood is probably most famous for The Handmaid’s Tale, a 1998 dystopian story about a woman forced into servitude in a misogynistic society. And much of her recent fiction —the MaddAdam stories, beginning with Oryx and Crake— has taken a similar turn toward science-fiction with a heavy dose of social justice and moral conscience.
But I suggest starting somewhere closer to her roots: Cat’s Eye, a story about an artist beginning a retrospective both literally and figuratively. When Elaine travels back to her hometown of Toronto, she comes up against memories of her past in a disconcertingly vivid present. Atwood’s knife-sharp prose cuts deep into the illusions we all carry about the innocence of childhood.
Memory and belonging, the cruelty of other people, friendship and love and betrayal… under Atwood’s deft hand, her most enduring themes combine into the singularly delicious brand of literary fiction that belongs to her alone.—Gwen Glazer
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Have other ideas about the best place to start or your favorite book by these authors? Let us know in the comments. And check out more of Atwood’s work from NYPL!
Get tickets to see Margaret Atwood on Friday, Oct. 14.