It must be the result of Alice Munro’s winning the Nobel prize for her life’s work in writing short stories. Both the legendary British writer, Jane Gardam, and now our own Margaret Atwood, have new collections of short stories out this year.
In Stone Mattress, a collection of nine short stories, Atwood is as original as ever. In spite of decades of prize-winning novels, short fiction, poetry, non-fiction and books for children, in this new book she comes up with highly inventive, often shocking, short stories in her own original style.
The Washington Post calls her “an utterly thrilling storyteller.” There is quirky humour, but also a certain grimness which colours many in this collection. Atwood lives with the writer Graeme Gibson in Toronto. But her imagination takes her far and wide in stories that leave you gasping. But not forgetting.
Review by Anne McDougall