Matt
Short story collections are almost always a bit hit and miss, but at this stage of her career Margaret Atwood was simply incapable of missing. I'm not sure there's a single dud in the bunch, and there's a couple of absolute all timers (Betty, Under Glass and Hair Jewellery stand out) that have lived rent free in my head for decades now. The scope of each story varies a lot, with some capturing a single afternoon while others encompass the full sweep of a character's life, but all of them are beautifully human and heartbreaking.
Short story collections are almost always a bit hit and miss, but at this stage of her career Margaret Atwood was simply incapable of missing. I'm not sure there's a single dud in the bunch, and there's a couple of absolute all timers (Betty, Under Glass and Hair Jewellery stand out) that have lived rent free in my head for decades now. The scope of each story varies a lot, with some capturing a single afternoon while others encompass the full sweep of a character's life, but all of them are beautifully human and heartbreaking.