The Blind Assassin: Summary and book reviews of The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, plus links to an excerpt from The Blind Assassin and a biography of Margaret Atwood.

Margaret Atwood takes the art of storytelling to new heights in a dazzling new novel that unfolds layer by astonishing layer and concludes in a brilliant and wonderfully satisfying twist. For the past twenty-five years, Margaret Atwood has written works of striking originality and imagination. In The Blind Assassin, she stretches the limits of her accomplishments as never before, creating a novel that is entertaining and profoundly serious. The novel opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister drove a car off the bridge." They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister Laura's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a- novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist. Told in a style that magnificently captures the colloquialisms and clichés of the 1930s and 1940s, The Blind Assassin is a richly layered and uniquely rewarding experience. The novel has many threads and a series of events that follow one another at a breathtaking pace. As everything comes together, readers will discover that the story Atwood is telling is not only what it seems to be--but, in fact, much more. The Blind Assassin proves once again that Atwood is one of the most talented, daring, and exciting writers of our time. Like The Handmaid's Tale, it is destined to become a classic.

Media Reviews

Publishers Weekly Atwood here surpasses even The Handmaid's Tale and Alias Grace.   Kirkus Reviews Atwood's skillfully woven tenth novel is her most ambitious and challenging work to date, and a worthy successor to her recent triumph, Alias Grace (1996). It tells two absorbing stories that cast an initially enigmatic, ultimately pitilessly revealing light on each other. The central one is octogenarian Iris Griffen's bitter reminiscence of her life as the privileged daughter of a prosperous Ontario family, the Chases, and later as wife to Richard Griffen, the businessman who effectively inherits and firmly directs the Chase fortunes. The counterpart story, The Blind Assassin, is a strange futuristic tale that dramatizes in unusual (faux-Oriental) fashion a nameless woman's obsession with a science-fiction writer whose imaginings blithely mirror and exploit his power over her. ....Boldly imagined and brilliantly executed.   Library Journal Some readers may figure out Atwood's wrap-up before book's end. Worry not--nothing will dampen the pleasure of getting there. Highly recommended.

Recent Reader Reviews

Rated of 5 by Karen
Patience, please
When I first started reading this book I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it. The segments about the Blind Assassin and the news clips seemed to interrupt the story, and I couldn't put them together with the rest of the novel. Thank goodness...   Read More

Rated of 5 by yoda
Ten days after the war ended,my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge
What I am about to do is very difficult. I really want to plug this book, so other people will pick it up and love it too. I don't know how to categorize it, much less what to put in this review. So here goes nothing. When I first saw this book...   Read More

Review (not rated) by Anne Nguyen
ok i started dwelving into this book because margaret atwoods reputation of being a great writer, and the numerous awards and the high esteem people have of her. I've started reading up to chapter 5, and it is very long and uncaptivating right now,...   Read More

Rated of 5 by Sarah
The architecture of this book is very well done, but that's all it really has. You'll have figured out the ending long before you get there, leaving you a story that's too long and dull with no reward. It really left me unsatisfied.

Rated of 5 by SMN
This book rocks!! There are no words that can say how much I loved this book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rated of 5 by Ashley Edmonds
I loved the Book, This is the first novel by Margaret twood I have read and I think that it was great. I even chose to do my english report on it. This book also related to alot of what I was learning in my History class. This book really helped me...   Read More

...11 More Reader Reviews

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