Summer is over, kids are back to school, and the summer beach books that you read sit on your shelf with bent spines and sand in between the page (for e-readers you are cleaning the film of suntan lotion off your screen). Either way it’s time to prepare for great fall literature and what better way to start it off than with a collection of nine delicious tales from Margaret Atwood.The collection is called Stone Mattress. The title story is about a woman who meets a man from her past and let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be on a cruise with her.
The book opens with a three-part story (“Alphinland”, “Revenant”, and “Dark Lady”)about a sci-fi writer, a poet who was the sci-fi poets past love, and the person who broke them up. It’s about those moments in life when certain moment in your life can truly change the course of it. It’s also about women and often times how they truly misunderstand each other.
There are a few creepy stories in this collection. The “The Freeze Dried Groom” is exactly what it sounds like. And one of the shortest, “Lusus Naturae”, is about a baby who is deformed and must fend for herself after her family faked her death. Animal spirits get their due in “I Dream of Zenia with the Bright Red Teeth”.
There is also a terrific story called “The Dead Hand Loves You”. It’s about a writer who pays his roommates off in commission on a yet to be written book that ends up being a world-wide bestseller. He is angry he has to split the profit three ways and decides to take revenge. He soon learns that there is not much to be vengeful about and teaches us that grudges can sometimes do more harm than good.
The final story in the collection is “Torching the Dusties”. It’s about a group of radicals who want to get rid of old people who they say have ruined the world. they go about setting old age homes on fire. This story is truly vintage Atwood. Handmaid’s Tale meets Shady Pines!
There truly is not a dud in the bunch in Stone Mattress. Some of these stories have been published before but even so rereading them will just show you why Margaret Atwood is one of the best living writers in Canada today. Atwood always forces you to think outside your comfort zone and she always teaches you something about yourself and the world. Stone Mattress is the first diamond in the Fall list of 2014.
