The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [0]
Title Page
Epigraph
Praise
I
The bridge
The Toronto Star, May 26, 1945
The Blind Assassin. By Laura Chase. Reingold, Jaynes & Moreau, New York, 1947
II
The Blind Assassin: The hard-boiled egg
The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1947
The Blind Assassin: The park bench
The Toronto Star, August 25, 1975
The Blind Assassin: The carpets
The Globe and Mail, February 19, 1998
The Blind Assassin: The lipstick heart
The Colonel Henry Parkman High School Home and School and Alumni Association Bulletin, Port Ticonderoga, May 1998
III
The presentation
The silver box
The Button Factory
Avilion
The trousseau
The gramophone
Bread day
Black ribbons
The soda
IV
The Blind Assassin: The cafe
The Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner, March 16, 1933
The Blind Assassin: The chenille spread
The Mail and Empire, December 5, 1934
The Blind Assassin: The messenger
The Mail and Empire, December 15, 1934
The Blind Assassin: Horses of the night
Mayfair, May 1935
The Blind Assassin: The bronze bell
V
The fur coat
The Weary Soldier
Miss Violence
Ovid’s Metamorphoses
The button factory picnic
Loaf givers
Hand-tinting
The cold cellar
The attic
The Imperial Room
The Arcadian Court
The tango
VI
The Blind Assassin: The houndstooth suit
The Blind Assassin: Red brocade
The Toronto Star, August 28, 1935
The Blind Assassin: Street walk
The Blind Assassin: The janitor
Mayfair, February 1936
The Blind Assassin: Alien on Ice
VII
The steamer trunk
The Fire Pit
Postcards from Europe
The eggshell hat
Besotted
Sunnyside
Xanadu
VIII
The Blind Assassin: Carnivore stories
Mayfair, July 1936
The Blind Assassin: Peach Women of Aa’A
The Mail and Empire, September 19, 1936
The Blind Assassin: The Top Hat Grill
IX
The laundry
The ashtray
The man with his head on fire
The Water Nixie
The chestnut tree
X
The Blind Assassin: Lizard Men of Xenor
Mayfair, May 1937
Letter from BellaVista
The Blind Assassin: The tower
The Globe and Mail, May 26, 1937
The Blind Assassin: Union Station
XI
The cubicle
The kitten
Beautiful view
Brightly shone the moon
Betty’s Luncheonette
The message
XII
The Globe and Mail, October 7, 1938
Mayfair, June 1939
The Blind Assassin: The Be rage Room
The Blind Assassin:Yellow curtains
The Blind Assassin: The telegram
The Blind Assassin: The destruction of Sakiel-Norn
XIII
Gloves
Home fires
Diana Sweets
Escarpment
XIV
The golden lock
Victory comes and goes
The heap of rubble
XV
The Blind Assassin Epilogue: The other hand
The Port Ticonderoga Herald and Banner, May 29, 1999
The threshold
Acknowledgments
About the Author
BY MARGARET ATWOOD
Copyright Page
Imagine the monarch Agha Mohammed Khan, who orders the entire population of the city of Kerman murdered or blinded – no exceptions. His praetorians set energetically to work. They line up the inhabitants, slice off the heads of the adults, gouge out the eyes of the children. . . . Later, processions of blinded children leave the city. Some, wandering around in the countryside, lose their way in the desert and die of thirst. Other groups reach inhabited settlements . . . singing songs about the extermination of the citizens of Kerman....
— RYSZARD KAPUCISKI
I swam, the sea was boundless, I saw no shore.
Tanit was merciless, my prayers were answered.
O you who drown in love, remember me.
—INSCRIPTION ON A CARTHAGINIAN FUNERARY URN
The word is a flame burning in a dark glass.
—SHEILA WATSON
Acclaim for Margaret Atwood’s THE BLIND ASSASSIN
Winner of the Booker Prize and the International Association of Crime Writers Dashiell Hammett Award
“A literary high-wire act. . . . Big and ambitious. . . . A sweeping family saga.”
—Newsweek
“Brilliant.... Opulent.... Atwood is a poet . . . as well as a contriver of fiction, and scarcely a sentence of her quick, dry yet avid prose fails to do useful work, adding to a picture that becomes enormous.”
—John Updike, The New Yorker
“Bewitching. . . . A killer novel.... Atwood’s crisp wit and steely realism are reminiscent of