Good Bones and Simple Murders

Im thrilled with the recent Margaret Atwood renaissance. Thanks to the success of The Handmaids Tale on Hulu, a new generation of readers is starting to dive into Atwoods back catalogue. This can be an intimidating process — 16 novels, and, more confusingly, about 8 or so short fiction collections (some of these are limited release, others combined into other volumes — this is also true of about 20 different books of poetry). Good Bones and Simple Murders is a reprint combining two earlier volumes — Good Bones and Murder in the Dark. Its primarily a collection of short-short stories that often read more like scene sketches and fragments. Its most similar to 2006s The Tent, and between the two, The Tent is the better standalone volume. Good Bones is enjoyable, but not essential. It is primarily of interest to Atwood completionists — much of the fun here is seeing what might be the genesis of some ideas that were later developed and fleshed out in lengthier, weightier works. If youre new to Margaret Atwood and looking for an entry point into her other books after reading The Handmaids Tale, Id look elsewhere before coming here. If you already have read a good sampling of others and are looking to expand your collection, or are curious about what it might feel like taking a peek inside of Atwoods notebooks, then theres something here for you. Theres nothing inside that is mandatory reading, but it is, after all, Margaret Atwood — shes never written anything bad.

I didn\’t know whether to give it one star or five. Is it a brilliant piece of creative writing or just another example of Ms. Famous Author Lady selling her laundry list? After some debate, I decided on the former. It made me laugh. It made me think. Parts of it confused the heck out of me. I think I\’ll read it over and over, getting something different out of it each time. Hence the five stars. But a negative comment that has nothing to do with the prose: on the Kindle, the chapter headings are set so far to the left that at most a couple of letters are visible. Did no one proof the Kindle version? For shame.

Not my favorite Atwood. Some of the stories were interesting, but overall I felt meh about the prose.

This prose of this collection verges on poetry in its beauty, wicked humor, and terrifying insights. Truly an unsung gem!

Everything this extraordinarily talented woman writes should be on everyone\’s Must Read lists. She is ironic and a reader of the future.

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