Cat's Eye Synopsis
Controversial painter Elaine Risley returns from Vancouver for a retrospective of her work. Here, in Toronto, the city of her youth, she confronts the submerged layers of her past her unconventional family, her eccentric and brilliant brother, the self-righteous Mrs. Smeath, and the two men Elaine later came to love in diverse and sometimes disastrous ways. But it is the enigmatic Cordelia, once her tormentor, then her best friend, whose elusive yet powerful presence in her life Elaine finally comes to understand. The realm of childhood and growing up, with its secrecies, cruelties, betrayals, and terrors, has never been so brilliantly evoked. By turns disquieting, humorous, compassionate, haunting and mordant, Cats Eye is vintage Atwood.From the Hardcover edition.
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Margaret Atwood Press Reviews
I read this when I was about sixteen and remember its menace. It is about the potential toxicity in female friendships, which is a contentious issue. Atwood is never pigeonholed, she's wry and has a poet's eye -- Jessie Burton, author of The Miniaturist
Not since Graham Greene or William Golding has a novelist captured so forcefully the relationship between school bully and victim...Atwood's power games are played, exquisitely, by little girls - LISTENER
Irrestistible...This book is about life for all of us. She is one of our finest novelists. Read it - THE TIMES
Atwood's taut and exquisite use of language makes all her books irresistable... - THE WEEK
Margaret Atwood charts the psychological process of memory as compulsion and memory as a healing act through the character of Elaine Risley, an artist who returns to her home town of Toronto for a retrospective of her work. Elaine's visit triggers though - - Chris Kellett, From 500 Great Books by Women, AMAZON.CO.UK REVIEW
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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