What surprised people about Margaret Atwood’s memoir
The Handmaid’s Tale author shares her life story in Book of Lives
Canadian author and journalist Susan Swan first met Margaret Atwood when she interviewed her 50 years ago. Swan was 30 at the time, and Atwood was 35.
Immediately, as Atwood walked up the stairs, Swan could feel the power and confidence emanating from her.
“She had a cape on, it was floating, and blazing blue eyes,” said Swan. “She wasn't that much older than me. And she had already kind of arrived in herself.”
“It took me a couple of decades more to get to that point of feeling that I was fully myself, but she was fully herself, right from an early age.”
Swan and Atwood have been friends ever since, catching up occasionally, said Swan on an episode of The Next Chapter.
As a fellow writer and longtime friend, she joined host Antonio Michael Downing, along with author Mona Awad to discuss Atwood’s memoir, Book of Lives.
After decades of literary stardom for her fiction, poetry and essays, the publication of Book of Lives earlier this month marks the first time Atwood has told her own life story.
What most surprised both panelists, was just how much Atwood was willing to share on the page.
Even as a friend, Swan noted that Atwood isn’t all that forthcoming with personal information.
“If you want it, you have to really pull it out of her,” she said.
“But in the book, she offers it.”
In Book of Lives, Atwood writes about love, loss and pain in a vulnerable way, opening up about her childhood, her first marriage and her relationship with her longtime partner Graeme Gibson, while never getting too deep into the emotions.
“She doesn't delve into the personal in detail. She comments on it, she reports on it,” said Swan. “So don't expect a Margaret Atwood novel when you read this.”
The power of the personal
Awad, the bestselling author of Bunny and We Love You, Bunny, has been a fan of Atwood’s writing since it was required reading at her Montreal high school.
“I went beyond what was required and just read those first novels on my own and was so blown away by them,” she said.
The feeling is mutual. Atwood, in a 2023 article in New York Times Style Magazine, named Awad her “literary heir apparent.”
Atwood’s reflections and personal anecdotes in the memoir really resonated with Awad.
“What surprised me, and what might surprise other readers, is that she does name names in this book in terms of who might have inspired a particular story,” said Awad.
She’s referring to a part of the memoir when Atwood discusses the bullying she endured as a child as the inspiration for Cat’s Eye, even name-dropping one bully.
It’s more complex than settling the score in Awad’s eyes.
“She's sharing that she was once a vulnerable kid who was at the mercy of three nine-year-old girls,” said Awad.
“I was bullied as a kid. So it really spoke to me, that novel when I read it. But for her to share her story of being bullied, and not only to share it, but to also name a name, I found that quite exhilarating.”
Awad was also moved by Atwood’s frankness around struggles she faced as a writer.
In Book of Lives, Atwood admits that she was working on a novel for four years, to no avail, when she decided to scrap it and start writing The Handmaid’s Tale, arguably her most successful novel.
“It's so encouraging to hear a writer discuss their failure because it's kind of taboo,” said Awad.
“I mean, you talk about it with your writer friends, but to share it in print is another thing, and I appreciated it.”
Truth with humour
Atwood is known for telling it like it is and her signature sense of humour, both of which come through in Book of Lives.
“She's not afraid to go deep, to go dark,” said Awad of her writing. “But it's always with a twinkle in her eye. It's always with some irreverence. She never takes herself too seriously.”
In fact, on a recent episode of The Current, when asked why she chose to write the memoir now, Atwood replied, deadpan, that “a lot of people have died.”
“I can actually say these things now without destroying somebody else's life. Except for the people whose lives I wish to destroy,” she joked.
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