Blind Assassin

A brilliant multi-layered novel spanning the twentieth century by one of the most important and successful writers today.

Laura Chase’s older sister Iris, married at eighteen to a politically prominent industrialist but now poor and eighty-two, is living in Port Ticonderoga, a town dominated by their once-prosperous family before the First War. While coping with her unreliable body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary life, in particular the events surrounding her sister’s tragic death. Chief among these was the publication of The Blind Assassin, a novel which earned the dead Laura Chase not only notoriety but also a devoted cult following.

Sexually explicit for its time, The Blind Assassin describes a risky affair in the turbulent thirties between a wealthy young woman and a man on the run. During their secret meetings in rented rooms, the lovers concoct a pulp fantasy set on Planet Zycron. As the invented story twists through love and sacrifice and betrayal, so does the real one; while events in both move closer to war and catastrophe. By turns lyrical, outrageous, formidable, compelling and funny, this is a novel filled with deep humour and dark drama.

‘Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge.’
‘Atwood has never written with more flair and versatility… a novel of extraordinary variety and reach… brilliant.’
—Peter Kemp, Sunday Times

‘The fertility of Atwood’s imagination is something extraordinary… The only thing familiar about The Blind Assassin is its technical accomplishment and exhilarating emotional power. Everything else is sparkling new. This is Margaret Atwood at her remarkable best.’
—Kathryn Hughes, Sunday Telegraph

‘Margaret Atwood is one of the most brilliant and unpredictable novelists alive.’
—Kate Kellaway, Literary Review