Other editions of book Bluebeard's Egg: Stories

With the publication of the best-selling The Handmaid's Tale in 1986, Margaret Atwood's place in North American letters was reconfirmed. Poet, short story writer, and novelist, she was acclaimed "one of the most intelligent and talented writers to set herself the task of deciphering life in the late twentieth century."*With Bluebeard's Egg, her second short story collection, Atwood covers a dramatic range of storytelling, her scope encompassing the many moods of her characters, from the desolate to the hilarious.The stories are set in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1980s and concern themselves with relationships of various sorts. There is the bond between a political activist and his kidnapped cat, a woman and her dead psychiatrist, a potter and the group of poets who live with her and mythologize her, an artist and the strange men she picks up to use as models. There is a man who finds himself surrounded by women who are literally shrinking, and a woman whose life is dominated by a fear of nuclear warfare; there are telling relationships among parents and children.By turns humorous and warm, stark and frightening, Bluebeard's Egg explores and illuminates both the outer world in which we all live and the inner world that each of us creates.*Le Anne Schreiber, Vogue

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's TaleBy turns humorous and warm, stark and poignant, the stories in Bluebeard’s Egg probe childhood memories, the reality of parents growing old, and the casual cruelty men and women can inflict on one another. A tenuous teenage love affair fails to survive a hurricane; a man notices the women around him becoming progressively paler and smaller; a surgeon who specializes in hearts seems oddly emotionally opaque to his wife; a middle-aged couple’s waning affection rekindles at the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds. In these exceptional short stories, Margaret Atwood proves herself once again a true master of the form.

Discover this sharp, funny short story collection from the bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale and The TestamentsA man finds himself surrounded by women who are becoming paler, more silent and literally smaller; a woman's intimate life is strangely dominated by the fear of nuclear warfare; a melancholy teenage love is swept away by a hurricane, while a tired, middle-aged affection is rekindled by the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds...In these exceptional short stories, by turns funny and searingly honest, Margaret Atwood captures brilliantly the complex forces that govern our relationships, and the powerful emotions that guide them.‘An acute and poetic observer of the eternal, universal, rum relationships between men and women’ The Times

Renowned novelist, poet, and short story writer Margaret Atwood has a gift unique among writers. In this marvelous collection of twelve short stories, Ms. Atwood writes of a woman who remembers her mother's favorite stories; a potter who tries to come to terms with the poets she lives with; a girl who agrees to go on a perilous raft trip because she is flattered to be invited, but knows herself unequal to the task. An extraordinary collection by an incomparable writer, Margaret Atwood is a writer to be read and savored and remembered.

A man finds himself surrounded by women who are becoming paler, more silent and literally smaller; a womans intimate life is strangely dominated by the fear of nuclear warfare; a melancholy teenage love is swept away by a hurricane, while a tired, middle-aged affection is rekindled by the spectacle of rare jamaican birds in these exceptional short stories, by turns funny and searingly honest, margaret atwood captures brilliantly the complex forces that govern our relationships, and the powerful emotions that guide them

In this acclaimed collection of twelve stories, Margaret Atwood probes the territory of childhood memories and the casual cruelty men and women inflict upon each other and themselves. She looks behind the familiar world of family summers at remote lakes, ordinary lives, and unexpected loves, and she unearths profound truths. A melancholy, teenage love is swept away by a Canadian hurricane, while a tired, middle-aged affection is rekindled by the spectacle of rare Jamaican birds; a potter tries to come to terms with the group of poets who so smother her that she is driven into the arms of her accountant; and, in the title story, the Bluebeard legend is retold as an ironic tale of marital deception. Stark and scathing at times, humorous and compassionate at others, "Bluebeard"'"s Egg" confirms once again Atwood's reputation as the pre-eminent chronicler of our times.