Bluebeard's Egg

Stories

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$15.95 US
Knopf | Anchor
24 per carton
On sale Jan 20, 1998 | 978-0-385-49104-4
Sales rights: US, Opn Mkt (no CAN)
By turns humorous and warm, stark and poignant, these stories from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments probe childhood memories, the reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women can inflict on one another.

A tenuous teenage love affair fails to survive a hurricane; a man notices the women around him becoming progressively paler and smaller; a surgeon who specializes in hearts seems oddly emotionally opaque to his wife; a middle-aged couple’s waning affection rekindles at the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds. In these exceptional short stories, Margaret Atwood proves herself once again a true master of the form.
“A book to be read and re-read, to be talked about and savored. . . . Atwood [is] writing at top form, writing with total control of her material, with sureness, with touches of brilliance.” —The London Free Press

“This collection . . .  attests, again, to Ms. Atwood’s range as a writer, her ability to set forth her view of the world . . . in both lyrical, meditative tales and wry, crackly satires. . . . These stories are strewn, like a starry sky, with shimmering images and bright metaphors.” —The New York Times

"A startlingly original voice." —Washington Post Book World

"Atwood's prose in Bluebeard's Egg is powerful, elegant and mellifluous to an extraordinary degree." —Quill and Quire

About

By turns humorous and warm, stark and poignant, these stories from the bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale and The Testaments probe childhood memories, the reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women can inflict on one another.

A tenuous teenage love affair fails to survive a hurricane; a man notices the women around him becoming progressively paler and smaller; a surgeon who specializes in hearts seems oddly emotionally opaque to his wife; a middle-aged couple’s waning affection rekindles at the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds. In these exceptional short stories, Margaret Atwood proves herself once again a true master of the form.

Praise

“A book to be read and re-read, to be talked about and savored. . . . Atwood [is] writing at top form, writing with total control of her material, with sureness, with touches of brilliance.” —The London Free Press

“This collection . . .  attests, again, to Ms. Atwood’s range as a writer, her ability to set forth her view of the world . . . in both lyrical, meditative tales and wry, crackly satires. . . . These stories are strewn, like a starry sky, with shimmering images and bright metaphors.” —The New York Times

"A startlingly original voice." —Washington Post Book World

"Atwood's prose in Bluebeard's Egg is powerful, elegant and mellifluous to an extraordinary degree." —Quill and Quire