For years, Margaret Atwood had “no interest” in writing a memoir, said Alexandra Alter in The New York Times. She was worried it would be boring. But the celebrated Canadian author eventually caved, penning the much anticipated “Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts”.
What changed? “They wore me down,” she told the publication. After a pause, she gave another answer: “Two words: People died. There’s things you can say that you wouldn’t say when they were alive.” Her new book isn’t a “blistering, score-settling tell-all, though there’s a dose of that”. Mostly, it’s about the “experiences” that have shaped her work.
‘She is a hoot’
“Alcoholic excess” and “debauched parties” would have livened things up, said Blake Morrison in The Guardian. “But she hasn’t lived that way.” What she has written is less “slice of life”, more “the whole works”: a 600-odd page book spanning all 85 years.
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It’s a “sharp, funny and engaging” book that you can enjoy even if you’re not completely familiar with her “astonishing output” (Atwood has published 17 novels, 19 books of poetry and eight children’s books).
A “far cry from new-fangled memoirs with their narrative arcs and redemption stories”, Atwood’s book feels more like a kind of “old-fashioned autobiography”, said Francesca Steele in The i Paper. Still, it’s “immensely readable”: her “self-deprecating wit” and “entertaining” anecdotes ensure “Book of Lives” is never tedious. “She is a hoot.”
And while she seems largely “uninterested” in the type of “squalid moral book-keeping” she mentions in her introduction, this doesn’t apply to Shirley (her partner’s first wife) who she “paints as a bitter, vengeful ex intent on ruining Atwood’s reputation and taking her money”. Of course, this is exactly the type of “bean-spilling” that gives the book a “deliciously naughty bite”.
‘Literary juice’
There are “a few pages of needless details on her ancestors” at the start of this “chunky” memoir, said John Self in The Times, and sadly she “hasn’t much to say about the writing of her early books. ‘I can’t remember a thing about it’, she says of ‘Lady Oracle’ (1976)”. She fails to give “any sense of how she experiences writing a novel; no struggle, no internal debate, not much sense of her inner emotions at all”. Perhaps writing just comes easily to her: this might help explain why we get 30 unnecessary pages about her partner Graeme Gibson’s life before they crossed paths.
Interestingly, though, we do discover that for a writer “prized for her imagination”, many of her books are rooted in experiences from her own life. And we’re treated to the “literary juice” many readers will be hoping for. “Where else will you hear about her fellow Canadian novelist Mordecai Richler proposing that he and Atwood fake a series of love letters, then sell them for a mint?”
We also get an insight into Atwood’s relationship with Gibson: “they were a perfect pairing”, enjoying a long and happy partnership until the beginning of his slow decline from dementia. The tone takes on a more sober tone towards the end following his death. Gradually, “the chapters grow shorter and there’s a shadow of mortality”.
Atwood’s “ingeniousness and wit” is evident on “every page” of her book, said Leigh Haber in The Boston Globe. It’s “lucky for us” she decided to press on with writing it as the memoir "has to be the most spectacular, hilarious, and generous autobiography of the last quarter century – or ever”.
