Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale is one of the most powerful books I've ever read - and along with Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, shaped my college coursework in feminist studies and women's literature. Yet, it took me over 10 years to pick up another Atwood book (kind of like my experience with Alice Walker). I can't explain why sometimes reading a book I love makes me want to run out and read everything that author has ever written (J.M. Coetzee is a fine example) and other times it makes me scared to find out that something else in their repertoire might not be quite as magnificent. So, it was with mild trepidation that I started The Blind Assassin. This book is fundamentally about Iris, whose younger sister Laura has just died in a tragic car accident, which may or may not have been the result of a suicide. The book is told from three different perspectives. One is Iris's first person account of her life growing up with Laura, the death of their mother at a young age, and Iris's attempts to keep her family afloat, even it meant suppressing her own happiness. The second "perspective" is a story within the story - pieces of a science-fiction novel written by Laura, and published post-humously. The third are journalistic accounts of the society life to which Iris belongs, and of course the newspaper articles concerning Laura's death. By the end, everything comes together to reveal the "truth" about Iris and Laura's secretive lives. Atwood's writing is incredible, but dense, and it took me awhile to get into the rhythm of this book. It is one I would recommend reading in hour (or longer) blocks of time, rather than in distracted spurts. While the feminist themes in this book are not as overt as in The Handmaid's Tale, this is most definitely a book about female relationships with each other and with the world in which they live.(*- Winner of the 2000 Man Booker Prize, listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die)
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