by Margaret Atwood,
published by Bloomsbury, £16.99,
designed by William Webb.
JO: Now this one is trying very hard.
QN: It screams pastiche, doesn’t it. It says America, 1930s, femme fatale, entanglement. It’s obviously using an old bit of stock pulp fiction artwork. It’s Margaret Atwood, a postmodern novelist, so either it’s ironic, and it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with those ideas, or it’s a modern reworking of these old themes. In fact, now I think about it, the novel is obviously not about those ideas, it’s got to be an ironic handling of material from the Raymond Chandler school of crime writing.
JO: What about that horrible bit of type? Isn’t that what they use on Fender guitars? Stratocaster. It doesn’t say crime to me.
QN: What’s your position on writing by Margaret Atwood, do you think the ‘by’ adds anything? It could be that it was a traditional convention of pulp fiction, and that the designer has copied it.
JO: The cover is weak, it feels to me like there was a struggle with the author.
QN: Have you noticed how Kazuo Ishiguro’s name is big on When We Were Orphans, and Margaret Atwood’s name is much bigger than the authors who we don’t know?
The Blind Assassin
A long, structurally complex novel featuring Iris, and her sister, Laura, author of a scandalous novel in the 1940s also called The Blind Assassin. Atwood explores themes of authorship, secrecy and female fulfilment and a lot of historical material.
Book synopsis edited from The Guardian.
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