Good Bones and Simple Murders

by Margaret Atwood

Overview

In this collection of short works that defy easy  categorization, Margaret Atwood displays, in  condensed and crystallized form, the trademark wit and  viruosity of her best-selling novels, brilliant  stories, and insightful poetry. Among the jewels  gathered here are Gertrude offering Hamlet a piece  of her mind, the real truth about the Little Red  Hen, a reincarnated bat explaining how Bram Stoker  got Dracula all wrong, and the  five methods of making a man (such as the  "Traditional Method": "Take some dust off  the ground. Form. Breathe into the nostrils the  breath of life. Simple, but effective!")  There are parables, monologues, prose poems, condensed  science fiction, reconfigured fairy tales, and  other miniature masterpieces--punctuated with  charming illustrations by the author. A must for her  fans, and a wonderful gift for all who savor the art  of exquisite prose, Good Bones And Simple  Murders marks the first time these  writings have been available in a trade edition in the  United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307798534
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/08/2011
Sold by:	Random House
Format:	eBook
Pages:	176
Sales rank:	637,806
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Margaret Atwood is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her novels include Cat’s Eye, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, The Blind Assassin, and the MaddAddam trilogy. Her 1985 classic, The Handmaid’s Tale, was followed in 2019 by a sequel, The Testaments, which was a global number one bestseller and won the Booker Prize. In 2020 she published Dearly, her first collection of poetry for a decade.
 
Atwood has won numerous awards including the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Imagination in Service to Society, the Franz Kafka Prize, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the PEN USA Lifetime Achievement Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature. She has also worked as a cartoonist, illustrator, librettist, playwright and puppeteer. She lives in Toronto, Canada.

Hometown:

Toronto, Ontario

Date of Birth:

November 18, 1939

Place of Birth:

Ottawa, Ontario

Education:

B.A., University of Toronto, 1961; M.A. Radcliffe, 1962; Ph.D., Harvard University, 1967

Website:

http://www.owtoad.com

Table of Contents

	Murder in the Dark	1
	Bad News	4
	Unpopular Gals	6
	The Little Red Hen Tells All	13
	Gertrude Talks Back	16
	There Was Once	20
	Women's Novels	25
	The Boys' Own Annual, 1911	31
	Stump Hunting	35
	Making a Man	38
	Men at Sea	43
	Simmering	45
	Happy Endings	50
	Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women	57
	The Victory Burlesk	64
	She	67
	The Female Body	69
	Cold-Blooded	79
	Liking Men	84
	In Love with Raymond Chandler	88
	Simple Murders	90
	Iconography	93
	Alien Territory	95
	My Life as a Bat	109
	Hardball	117
	Bread	121
	Poppies: Three Variations	125
	Homelanding	132
	The Page	139
	An Angel	143
	Third Handed	146
	Death Scenes	149
	We Want It All	154
	Dance of the Lepers	156
	Good Bones	159

Editorial Reviews

This collection of quirky, clever, and devilishly funny sketches, parodies, and fractured fairy tales is a scream. Free from the structural demands of novels, short stories, and poetry, Atwood infuses these bracing little narratives with the full force of her drollness, anger, shrewdness, sass, and humor. Atwood has never forgotten the hard lessons of girlhood, and she continues to question the roots of our assumptions about gender roles, testing our shaky sense of progress toward equality. Her fascination with women's roles in life and literature leads her to muse on the necessity of "stupid women" in stories, to compare men's novels with women's novels, and to revisit old tales such as "Bluebeard" and "The Little Red Hen." In "Making a Man" and "Simmering," men take quite a beating; at one point, she declares, "Men's bodies are the most dangerous things on earth." After further reflections on sex, war, and relationships -- and a satire about applying political-correctness standards to literature -- Atwood moves on to some devastating views of our species and our future. These marvelously incendiary creations are like sparks thrown off from Atwood's longer works, crackling and popping brightly against the night sky, making us laugh and shiver.

Donna Seaman

[Atwood] proves she is an accomplished miniaturist...She can pack more wallop into less space than any other writer in her weight class.

Toronto Globe And Mail