The Blind Assassin A Novel [Paperback]

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale

WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE

InThe Blind Assassin,Margaret Atwood weaves together strands of gothic suspense, romance, and science fiction into one utterly spellbinding narrative. The novel begins with the mysterious death—a possible suicide—of a young woman named Laura Chase in 1945. Decades later, Laura’s sister Iris recounts her memories of their childhood, and of the dramatic deaths that have punctuated their wealthy, eccentric family’s history. Intertwined with Iris’s account are chapters from the scandalous novel that made Laura famous, in which two illicit lovers amuse each other by spinning a tale of a blind killer on a distant planet. These richly layered stories-within-stories gradually illuminate the secrets that have long haunted the Chase family, coming together in a brilliant and astonishing final twist. The first great novel of the new millennium.  —Newsday

Absorbing... expertly rendered... Virtuosic storytelling [is] on display.  —The New York Times

Brilliant... Opulent... Atwood is a poet.... as well as a contriver of fiction, and scarcely a sentence of her quick, dry yet avid prose fails to do useful work, adding to a picture that becomes enormous. —John Updike,The New Yorker

Chilling... Lyrical... [Atwood's] most ambitious work to date.  —The Boston Globe

Hauntingly powerful.... A novel of luminous prose, scalpel-precise insights and fierce characters... Atwood's new work is so assured, so elegant and so incandescently intelligent, she casts her contemporaries in the shade.  —The Atlanta Journal--Constitution

Grand storytelling on a grand scale... Sheerly enjoyable.  —The Washington Post Book World

Bewitching... A killer novelCs