BOOK OF LIVES: A MEMOIR OF SORTS - Margaret Atwood

 What a joy to read Margaret Atwood.

"A Memoir of Sorts" is a great subtitle for this book. Part autobiography, part memoir, part journal, part reflection on friends and loves, part essays on a wide variety of topics this book is hard to classify but what comes through is Atwood's easy, conversational style of writing. Reading this felt like sitting in a cozy parlor and listening to Ms Atwood tell the story of her life. Each time we sit down together she tells me something different. Sometimes it picked up where we left off the last time, and sometimes it was something she was just thinking about.

I first discovered Margaret Atwood's work when I picked up her short story collection, Bluebeard's Egg, when the Fawcett edition was released in 1987. I worked in a book store at the time and I still remember unboxing it, surprised that we were getting a 'new' collection of short stories. I didn't think anyone published short stories in mass market editions at the time. The 1986 hardcover edition of The Handmaid's Tale was still on our shelves and so I read that and was completely sold on this 'new' writer. For the last decade I've read everything she's released and picked up the occasional older book in her oeuvre.

I'm not sure what it is that I like about a book like this beyond the idea that the author is talking to me, but when you enjoy someone's work, it's interesting to get a peek at the person behind the work. Everything they've done, the people they've met, all leads to the person's experiences which come into play in their creative work. Here Atwood points us very directly to people and incidents from her life that make an appearance in her books. These little nuggets are pure gold to Atwood fans.

Even in a memoir of sorts, Atwood's language and descriptions are exquisite: "boyfriends somehow just appeared, like mushrooms after a rain" she writes of her high school days. "It was the era of going steady, so you had each boyfriend until he wore out and then you got another."

Sprinkled throughout the book are poems Atwood wrote at various times in her life. I'm not a fan of poetry, even by someone whose work I admire (like Margaret Atwood!) though I did find bits and pieces here that even I enjoyed. Poetry fans will go nuts for these.

Atwood writes:

...a first-person narrator can lie, and conceal, and leave things out, and often does. When a story is being told, there's always a listener, stated or implied; and there is always a reason why the story is being told to that listener.

It's hard to imagine what she might have left out of this particular story, but it's clear that we are the listeners. I'm not going to spend much time trying to understand why this is being told now, I'm just grateful we're getting it.

Looking for a good book? Margaret Atwood's Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts gives us a glimpse of the author as herself. Young self, older self, student, friend, learner, presenter. It's told with all the brilliance one might expect from the author.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars

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Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts

author: Margaret Atwood

publisher: Doubleday

ISBN: 9780385547512

hardcover, 624 pages