"Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge." Thus begins The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood's brilliant new novel. Laura Chase's older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by her once-prosperous family before the First World War. Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, leading up to the events surrounding her sister's death. Chief among these was the publication of "The Blind Assassin," a novel that earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety, but also a devoted cult following.

Sexually explicit for its time, "The Blind Assassin" describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a left-leaning man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms and seedy cafés, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on the Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists and turns through love and jealousy, self-sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one, as events in both move closer to war and catastrophe.

By turns lyrical, outrageous, compelling, and funny, The Blind Assassin confirms Margaret Atwood's status as one of the world's pre-eminent novelists.

Margaret Atwood really is a genius. This novel is full of realistic characters. No heros, no one perfect. I especially appreciate getting to know Iris as an old woman, with her ego and her insecurities all still intact. So many of the events are incomprehensible, and it's hard to trace where it all goes wrong. This was my second reading of the novel, and they way the truth (as Iris sees it) unfolds is just perfect.

I am reserving this copy for the Canada Day Release Challenge 2009.

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

I left this book (safely in a ziploc bag) on a table on the patio. This book was released as part of the 2009 Canada Day Release Challenge.

Happy Canada Day!