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Stone mattress : nine tales

by Atwood, Margaret, 1939-

Format: Print Book 2015
Availability: Available at 2 Libraries 3 of 4 copies

Available (3)
Location Collection Call #
Hampton Community Library Fiction F ATWOOD
Location  Hampton Community Library
 
Collection  Fiction
 
Call Number  F ATWOOD
 
 
Northland Public Library Paperbacks P/BD ATWOOD
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Paperbacks
 
Call Number  P/BD ATWOOD
 
 
Northland Public Library Paperbacks P/BD ATWOOD
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Paperbacks
 
Call Number  P/BD ATWOOD
 
 
 
Unavailable (1)
Location Collection Status
Northland Public Library Paperbacks CHECKED OUT
Location  Northland Public Library
 
Collection  Paperbacks
 
Status  CHECKED OUT
 
 

Summary
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Handmaid's Tale

In this extraordinary collection, Margaret Atwood gives us nine unforgettable tales that reveal the grotesque, delightfully wicked facets of humanity. "Alphinland," the first of three loosely linked tales, introduces us to a fantasy writer who is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband. In "Lusus Naturae," a young woman, monstrously transformed by a genetic defect, is mistaken for a vampire. And in the title story, a woman who has killed four husbands discovers an opportunity to exact vengeance on the first man who ever wronged her. By turns thrilling, funny, and thought-provoking, Stone Mattress affirms Atwood as our greatest creator of worlds--and as an incisive chronicler of our darkest impulses.
Contents
Alphinland
Revenant
Dark lady
*** Lusus naturae
The freeze-dried groom
I dream of Zenia with the bright red teeth
The dead hand loves you
Stone mattress
Torching the dusties.
Published Reviews
Booklist Review: "*Starred Review* Atwood is shrewdly brilliant, gleefully mischievous, and acerbically hilarious in her first short-fiction collection since the superb Moral Disorder (2006). She portrays baby boomers much irked by age's dirty tricks and the rankling of painful memories. Atwood also has good satiric fun mocking the pretension of the writing vocation even as she marvels over its curious felicities. Young Constance began composing fantasy stories to support Gavin, her ne'er-do-well poet lover. Now a wispy new widow gamely venturing out into a ferocious blizzard, she is quite famous for her long-running, movie-adapted Alphinland series and seems to be acquiring the sort of supernatural powers she thought were confined to her imaginary realm. In The Dead Hand Loves You, a feckless college student makes a devil's deal with his roommates concerning the seemingly dim prospects for his cheesy horror tale about a jilted lover's creepy revenge. Atwood's canny adventures with the macabre also involve a grisly discovery in a storage unit, a wry and clever freak of nature, and, in the surprising and supremely satisfying title story, spontaneous retribution in the Arctic. Intimations of worsening environmental disruption appear throughout the collection, culminating in Torching the Dusties, in which personal vendettas give way to mass vigilante justice. Atwood has the raptor's penetrating gaze, speed, and agility and never misses her mark. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Ads and promotional efforts will inspire Atwood's ever-expanding and active reader base, including her hundreds of thousands of social media followers.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2014 Booklist"
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Publisher's Weekly Review: "Atwood, a bestselling master of fiction, delivers a stunning collection-her first since 2006's Moral Disorder. Most of the nine stories feature women who have been wronged as girls but recover triumphantly as adults. Atwood brings her biting wit to bear on the battle of the sexes. The first three stories in the book-"Alphinland," "Revenant," and "Dark Lady"-are linked by a pretentious poet and his girlfriends, who best him professionally and personally as he ages into an impotent, disgruntled old man with a wife 30 years his junior: "He probably has more horns on his head-as the bard would say-than a hundred headed snail." Corpses are found, as in "The Freeze-Dried Groom"-or not found, as in the title story, set on an Arctic cruise, in which a woman takes her revenge on the high school "Mr. Hearthrob, Mr. Senior Football Star, Mr. Astounding Catch... Mr. Shit" of 50 years before. Readers love Atwood's women, despite, or because of, who they are and what they do. Add in her wild imagination-women conversing with dead husbands; genetic missteps that produce a girl with yellow eyes, pink teeth, and "long, dark chest hair"; and costumed "little people" who appear to an elderly nursing home resident-and it's clear that this grande dame is at the top of her game. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved."
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Additional Information
Subjects Authors -- Fiction.
Betrayal -- Fiction.
Man-woman relationships -- Fiction.
Publisher New York :2015
Edition First Anchor books edition.
Other Titles Short stories.
Language English
Description 289 pages ; 21 cm
ISBN 9780804173506
0804173508
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