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Review by Lauryn Angel
The book is in stores now from Doubleday. Click on the link to buy a copy. https://amzn.to/4oNHGJH
When approached about writing a memoir, Margaret Atwood was initially resistant, finding the idea of literary biography boring. I, for one, am heartily glad she changed her mind, as Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts, weighing in at roughly 600 pages is fascinating reading.
Atwood, who turned 86 just this week, begins with her parents. Carl Atwood was an entomologist whose work took the family into the “bush” of northern Quebec, where they lived in tents until he built them a cabin. This life often meant living without electricity or running water, but young Margaret (called Peggy at this time) and her siblings traded such luxuries for outdoor adventures like canoeing and snowshoeing. She also developed skills such as cake decorating, taking charge of birthday cake duties for older brother Harold, whose birthday in February dictated Valentine’s themes, and younger sibling Ruth, who got Halloween-themed cakes in her October birthday.
These adventures did not make Atwood immune to the woes of girlhood, as she recounts an incident of bullying by girls who were supposedly her friends. Due to some excellent advice from her mother, she emerged from the incident, not unscathed, but better than most girls when put through a similar experience, and with material for a later novel.
Atwood’s college years capture a time when she developed as a writer and thinker at the University of Toronto, Radcliffe, and Harvard, juxtaposed with several abysmal living situations. She meanwhile captures the state of Canadian education and literature at the time, while chronicling her own early contributions and her romantic relationships. Against this background, we see her developing interests in gender and power politics which, along with environmentalism, later play important parts in her novels.
While she does acknowledge those who openly (read: in print) attack her, for the most part Atwood does not name the names of those who wronged her – and even those who didn’t wrong her, but whom she’d like to protect from current media exposure, such as her Very Nice Boyfriend, whom she still hears from, occasionally. Honestly, however, it’s almost more fun when we don’t know whom she’s referring to, as she adds asides like “you’re probably dead” and telling them if they’ve experienced bad luck, it’s because she cursed them.
This leads to one of the surprising sides of Atwood that I, at least, was previously unaware of: Margaret Atwood in tarot, astrology, palm readings, and other aspects of the supernatural. She casually drops references to the birth charts and star signs of many of the important people in her life, and talks about doing card or palm readings of friends and family members. While I didn’t know about this interest previously, it makes a lot of sense given the symbolic nature of many of her stories.
Whether you’ve read everything Margaret Atwood has ever written or you’re only familiar with The Handmaid’s Tale – novel, movie, or television show – Book of Lives is a fascinating memoir from one of the most prolific and celebrated authors of our time, told with the sense of sparkling mischief and wit that make her writing so engaging.
