WINNER OF THE KITSCHIES RED TENTACLE AWARD FOR MOST PROGRESSIVE, INTELLIGENT AND ENTERTAINING SPECULATIVE NOVEL Stan and Charmaine are a married couple trying to stay afloat in the midst of economic and social collapse. Living in their car, surviving on tips from Charmaine's job at a dive bar, they're increasingly vulnerable to roving gangs, and in a rather desperate state. So when they see an advertisement for the Positron Project in the town of Consilience - a 'social experiment' offering stable jobs and a home of their own - they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for this suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month, swapping their home for a prison cell.
At first, all is well. But slowly, unknown to the other, Stan and Charmaine develop a passionate obsession with their counterparts, the couple that occupy their home when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire take over, and Positron looks less like a prayer answered and more like a chilling prophecy fulfilled.
A sinister, wickedly funny novel about a near-future in which the lawful are locked up and the lawless roam free, The Heart Goes Last is Margaret Atwood at her heart-stopping best.
Debt as Metaphor and the Shadow Side of Wealth. Margaret Atwood's book is not about debt management or high finance, but about debt as a very old, central motif in religion and literature and also in the structuring of human societies.
A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace.
Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In "The Freeze-Dried Bridegroom," a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In "Lusus Naturae," a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In "Torching the Dusties," an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in "Stone Mattress," a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.
This ebook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.
A collection of eleven stories - a series of moments that trace the course of a life, and the lives intertwined with it: those of parents, siblings, children, friends, enemies, teachers and even animals.
Debt is like air - something we take for granted and never think about until things go wrong. This book examines the metaphor of debt and the role it takes in our lives. It is about debt as a very old, central motif in religion and literature and in the structuring of human societies. It also looks at the language of debt in the "Old Testament".
One day, Dorinda and Bob meet on a vacant block strewn with bushes, buttercups and benches. They become friends. One day, a buffalo bounds over a barrier at a nearby garden. Bob and Dorinda band together to save the day. They emerge from the episode victorious. No longer bashful and doleful, they discover that they can be brave and daring.
