Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Teaser Tuesday: The Blind Assassin



When the policeman had gone I went upstairs to change. To visit the morgue I would need gloves, and a hat with a veil.

-- The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.

This Booker Prize winner has been on my TBR shelf forever! I was intimidated by the idea of its novel within a novel within a novel, but I shouldn't have been. The structure is not as complicated as it sounds. The narrator Iris is telling the story of her and her sister Laura's lives. But the book also includes an apparently autobiographical novel of Laura's, published posthumously, that fills in Iris's story. And part of Laura's novel is an allegorical science fiction story told by the lover to the novel's heroine. So all three works of fiction combine to tell one story.

OK, so maybe it does sound complicated. But it doesn't feel complicated when you read it. It comes out just as a really good story.


Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by MizB at Books and a Beat, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event.

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