MaddAddam Synopsis
Toby, a survivor of the man-made plague that has swept the earth, is telling stories. Stories left over from the old world, and stories that will determine a new one. Listening hard is young Blackbeard, one of the innocent Crakers, the species designed to replace humanity.
Their reluctant prophet, Jimmy-the-Snowman, is in a coma, so they've chosen a new hero - Zeb, the street-smart man Toby loves. As clever Pigoons attack their fragile garden and malevolent Painballers scheme, the small band of survivors will need more than stories.
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Margaret Atwood Press Reviews
'Moving, but also very funny ... MaddAddam is an extraordinary achievement' -- Independent on Sunday
'A fierce, learned intelligence ... MaddAddam is a wild ride ... great fun' -- Guardian
'Atwood has brought the previous two books together in a fitting and joyous conclusion ... Atwood's prose miraculously balances humor, outrage and beauty ... This finale to Atwood's ingenious trilogy lights a fire from the fears of our age, then douses it with hope for the planet's survival' -- New York Times
'There are few writers able to create a world so fiercely engaging, so funny, so teeming - ironically - with life. MaddAddam is ultimately a paean to the enduring powers of myth and story, and like the sharpest futuristic visions, it's really all about the here and now' -- Daily Mail
'This final volume deploys its author's trademark cool, omniscient satire, but adds to that a real sense of engagement with a fallen world. Atwood has created something reminiscent of Shakespeare's late comedies; her wit and dark humour combine with a compassionate tenderness towards struggling human beings ... Since almost everything in the world has been broken or has broken down, the novel's form, whirling as brilliantly as the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope, or the pixels in a complex computer game, seems simply to replicate that chaos. However, behind the apparent disorder Atwood the conjuror remains in firm control, juggling her narrative techniques with postmodern glee' -- Independent
'A haunting, restless triumph ... A writer of virtuoso diversity, with an imagination that responds as keenly to scientific concerns as it does to the literary heritage in which she is steeped ... A dystopia over which Atwood sets swirling a glitterball of different kinds of fiction' -- Sunday Times
'It may have been a decade in the making, but it has been well worth the wait ... Margaret Atwood not only completes one of the most harrowing visions of a near-future dystopia in recent fiction, but lures us even further into new zones of existential terror' -- The Times
About Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.
She is the author of more than twenty-five volumes of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, The Robber Bride and Alias Grace. Her novel, The Blind Assassin, won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000.
Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson.
Author photo © George Whiteside
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