The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood
63 Rating(s)
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The Blind Assassin

Author: Margaret Atwood

Narrator: Margot Dionne

Unabridged: 18 hr 18 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/05/2000


Synopsis

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.

About Margaret Atwood

It seems as though some people carry out their interests in many ways. Such has been the life of Canadian born Margaret Atwood. For someone who did not begin school until the age of 12, Atwood became an avid reader, which probably encouraged her development of varied interests. She identifies as a poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher, and environmental activist. I doubt that spare time is in her agenda.

Beginning in 1961, Atwood has published 18 poetry collections, 18 novels, 11 non-fiction books, short fiction writings, two graphic novels, and various other smaller writings, both fiction and non-fiction. She has received several awards for her writings, with some of her works having been adapted for television and film. Those works increased her public exposure even more.

Atwood was married twice, divorced from one husband, and lost her second husband in 2019, after his unfortunate struggle with dimentia. The family, Atwood and her daughter, Eleanor Jess Atwood Gibson, had moved to a farm near Alliston, Ontario. Atwood has sister, Ruth, and a brother, Harold.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Manny on May 11, 2015

- So are you still trudging through the Margaret Atwood? - George, you should stop being so dismissive! Have you ever read it? - Well, I think I got as far as chapter three. Typical po-mo cleverness with a story inside a story inside... anyway, I decided I couldn't take any more, so I gave up. - So......more

Goodreads review by J.L. on March 11, 2020

“The best way of keeping a secret is to pretend there isn't one.” Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin is a fascinating and compelling read! There are so many seemingly competing stories which add to the complexity of the narrator and her life. They are also next to impossible to fully understand wi......more


Quotes

“The first great novel of the new millennium.”
Newsday

“Margaret Atwood is one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive.”
Literary Review (U.K.)

“An example of a writer at the very peak of her performance.…As it delves into the kinds of relationships that can exist between men and women and the rich and poor, it becomes a compassionate and utterly honest book. It is profound and touching. It is to be treasured.”
Edmonton Journal

“Atwood performs a spectacular sleight of hand, fashioning a bewitching, brilliantly layered story of how people see only what they wish to.”
Entertainment Weekly

“Dazzling and entertaining.…”
Globe and Mail

The Blind Assassin is quite simply Atwood’s most emotional, yearning, heartfelt, sexy, and elegiac book ever.”
Quill & Quire

“Atwood has never written with more flair and versatility than in this multidimensional novel. A brilliant accomplishment.”
Sunday Times (U.K.)

“Boldly imagined and brilliantly executed.”
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“There is no presence more formidably protean than Margaret Atwood’ s in Canadian culture.…[The Blind Assassin] will alternately charm and beguile its readers.”
Winnipeg Free Press

“Stories spin within stories in this spellbinding novel of avarice, love, and revenge.…”
Booklist (U.S.) (starred review)

“A tour de force.”
Chicago Tribune

“Sumptuous and compelling.….”
Toronto Star

The Blind Assassin is the kind of story so full of intrigue and desperation that you take it to bed with you simply because you can’t bear to put it down.…It’s one thing to write an accomplished novel; it’s another entirely to spin a tale so brilliantly that the reader internalizes it.”
Harper’s Bazaar

“Atwood is a dazzling storyteller with a distinctive voice and an ear attuned to irony.”
London Free Press

“Margaret Atwood is one of the greatest writers alive.…A novel of luminous prose, scalpel-precise insights and fierce characters.…[The Blind Assassin] is so assured, so elegant and so incandescently intelligent, she casts her contemporaries in the shade.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution


Awards

  • ALA Best Books for Young Adults
  • Booker Prize
  • Orange Prize