Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin, Oryx and Crake: Bloomsbury Studies in Contemporary North American Fiction

Introductions provide critical overviews of each text and further reading guides students to independent study.

Series Preface \ Acknowledgments \ 1. Introduction: Negotiating with Margaret Atwood J. Brooks Bouson \ Part I: The Robber Bride (1993) 2. Magical Realism in The Robber Bride and Other Texts Sharon R. Wilson \ 3. Parodic Border Crossings in Atwood's The Robber Bride Hilde Staels \ 4. You're History: Living with Trauma in The Robber Bride Laurie Vickroy \ Part II: The Blind Assassin (2000) 5. "Was I My Sister's Keeper?" The Blind Assassin and Problematic Feminisms Fiona Tolan \ 6. Narrative Multiplicity and the Multi-layered Self in Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin Magali Cornier Michael \ 7. "If You Look Long Enough": Photography, Memory, and Mourning in The Blind Assassin Shuli Barzilai \ Part III: Oryx and Crake (2003) 8. Moral/Environmental Debt in Margaret Atwood's Payback and Oryx and Crake Shannon Hengen \ 9. Problematic Paradice: Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake Karen Stein \ 10. The Apocalyptic Imagination in Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake Mark Bosco \ Notes on Chapters \ Works Cited \ Further Reading \ Notes on Contributors \ Index

"We welcome this new collection of essays on Margaret Atwood's later novels, the first to include a substantial section on Oryx and Crake. J.Brooks Bouson has assembled an international team of major Atwood scholars who show us fascinating new ways of understanding Atwood's fiction by highlighting features which range from magic realism to environmentalism and debt, trauma narratives, and her apocalyptic imagination. The critical inventiveness of these essays matches Atwood's own irrepressibly creative storytelling."
... readers should appreciate the series' clear purpose and excellent essays. The series is a welcome addition to scholarship. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
Rather than limiting itself to a thematic study of the novels, Bouson's volume finds its strength in the variety of foci among the nine individual chapters, which includes Atwood's adaptations of many literary genres and narrative techniques as well as such sociocultural issues as female victimization and environmental destruction. At the same time, the collection successfully foregrounds concerns that are central to Atwood's fiction, such as women's relationships to each other, to feminism, and to literary traditions, resulting in a well-balanced overview of the author's work and the scholarship on it.