Matt
Absolutely unmissable if you're a fan of Margaret Atwood, right from the start her authorial voice comes through so strongly that it feels like catching up with an long-time friend who you don't see as much as you used to, but are delighted every time you bump into each other - especially since she's clearly not afraid to spill some messy gossip. The connections between her life and her work come through strongly and while her fiction never seems to be fully autobiographical, I'm looking forward to re-reading her work to see how different they feel with all this new knowledge. The sections focusing on Graeme Gibson's life are probably the least interesting if you're just here to get your Atwood fix, but the central role he played in her life eventually makes these diversions from her main story feel necessary to understanding her as a person. Ultimately left me feeling a bit melancholic as aging and death start to move from the periphery to the centre of the story - Margaret Atwood feels like a load bearing presence, and I'd much rather not think of a world without her in it.
Absolutely unmissable if you're a fan of Margaret Atwood, right from the start her authorial voice comes through so strongly that it feels like catching up with an long-time friend who you don't see as much as you used to, but are delighted every time you bump into each other - especially since she's clearly not afraid to spill some messy gossip. The connections between her life and her work come through strongly and while her fiction never seems to be fully autobiographical, I'm looking forward to re-reading her work to see how different they feel with all this new knowledge. The sections focusing on Graeme Gibson's life are probably the least interesting if you're just here to get your Atwood fix, but the central role he played in her life eventually makes these diversions from her main story feel necessary to understanding her as a person. Ultimately left me feeling a bit melancholic as aging and death start to move from the periphery to the centre of the story - Margaret Atwood feels like a load bearing presence, and I'd much rather not think of a world without her in it.