"It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward," writes Margaret Atwood, towards the end of her impressive and complex new novel, The Blind Assassin. It's a melancholic account of why writers write--and readers read--and one that frames the different lives told through this book. The Blind Assassin is (at least) two novels. At the end of her life, Iris Griffen takes up her pen to record the secret history of her family, the romantic melodrama of its decline and fall between the two World Wars. Conjuring a world of prosperity and misery, marriage and loneliness, the central enigma of Iris's tale is the death of her sister, Laura Chase, who "drove a car off a bridge" at the end of the Second World War. Suicide or accident? The story gradually unfolds, interspersed with sketches of Iris's present-day life--confined by age and ill-health--and a second novel, The Blind Assassin by Laura Chase. Allowing a glimpse into a clandestine love affair between a privileged young woman and a radical "agitator" on the run, this version of The Blind Assassin is an overt act of seduction: the exchange of sex and story about an imaginary world of Sakiel-Norn (a play with the potential, and convention, of fantasy and sci-fi).

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

** 'Atwood has never written with more flair and versatility than in this multidimensional novel. A brilliant accomplishment' SUNDAY TIMES ** 'This is Margaret Atwood at her remarkable best.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH ** 'Margaret Atwood is one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive.' LITERARY REVIEW ** 'THE BLIND ASSASSIN may indeed prove to be that most elusive of literary unicorns: the woman's novel.' NEW STATESMAN